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THE  PROFESSION  OF  JOURNALISM 


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THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS 

BOSTON 


THE  PROFESSION  OF 

JOURNALISM 

A  Collection  of  Articles  on  Newspaper  Editing 

and  Publishing,  Taken  from  the 

Atlantic  Monthly 


EDITED  WITH  AN   INTRODUCTION 
AND  NOTES  BY 

WILLARD  GROSVENOR  BLEYER,  PH.D. 

Author  of  "Newspaper  Writing  and  Editing"  and  "Types  of  News 

Writing";  Professor  of  Journalism  in  the 

University  of  Wisconsin 


OTfje  Atlantic  Jfflontfjlp  ffrestf 

BOSTON 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS,  INC. 


.  3  it  t  it 


PREFACE 


T 


THE  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  bring  together  in  con- 
venient form  a  number  of  significant  contributions  to  the 
discussion  of  the  newspaper  and  its  problems  which  have 
appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  in  recent  years.  Although 
these  articles  were  intended  only  for  the  readers  of  that 
magazine  at  the  time  of  their  original  publication,  they 
have  permanent  value  for  the  general  reader,  for  news- 
paper workers,  and  for  students  of  journalism. 

Practically  every  phase  of  journalism  is  taken  up  in 
these  articles,  including  newspaper  publishing,  news  and 
editorial  policies,  the  influence  of  the  press,  yellow  and 
sensational  journalism,  the  problems  of  the  newspaper  in 
small  cities,  country  journalism,  the  Associated  Press,  the 
law  of  libel,  book-reviewing,  dramatic  criticism,  "comics," 
free-lance  writing,  and  the  opportunities  in  the  profession. 
For  readers  who  desire  to  make  a  further  study  of  any  of 
the  important  aspects  of  the  press,  a  bibliography  of  such 
books  and  magazine  articles  as  are  generally  available  in 
public  libraries  has  been  appended. 

Most  of  the  authors  of  the  articles  in  this  volume  are 
newspaper  and  magazine  writers  and  editors  whose  long 
experience  in  journalism  gives  particular  value  to  their 
analysis  of  conditions,  past  and  present.  Brief  notes  on 
the  journalistic  work  of  the  writers  are  given  in  the  Ap- 
pendix. 

For  permission  to  reprint  the  articles  the  editor  is  in- 
debted to  the  writers  and  to  the  editor  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly. 

W.  G.  B. 

UNIVERSITY  or  WISCONSIN, 
January  12,  1918. 


I       504 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION.                                Willard  Grosvenor  Bleyer  ix 

SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM.                         Rollo  Ogden  1 
PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS. 

Oswald  Garrison  Vittard  20 

THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS.     Francis  E.  Leupp  30 

NEWSPAPER  MORALS.                                    H.  L.  Mencken  5% 

NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY.                   Ralph  Pulitzer  68 
THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS. 

Edward  Alsworth  Ross  79 
THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM. 

Henry  Watterson  97 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS. 

" An  Observer"  112 

THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS:  A  REPLY.         Melville  E.  Stone  124 

CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR.        "Paracelsus"  133 
THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY. 

Charles  Moreau  Harger  151 
SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW. 

George  W.  Alger  167 

THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW.          Richard  Washburn  Child  181 

HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM.      Charles  Miner  Thompson  200 
DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  THE  AMERICAN  PRESS. 

James  S.  Metcalfe  224 
THE  HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED  SUPPLEMENT. 

Ralph  Bergengren  233 

THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET.                 James  H.  Collins  243 

JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER.              Charles  Moreau  Harger  264 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  279 

NOTES  ON  THE  WRITERS  290 


INTRODUCTION 

BY   WILLARD   GROSVENOR   BLEYER 


"THE  food  of  opinion,"  as  President  Wilson  has  well  said, 
"is  the  news  of  the  day."  The  daily  newspaper,  for  the 
majority  of  Americans,  is  the  sole  purveyor  of  this  food 
for  thought.  Citizens  of  a  democracy  must  read  and 
assimilate  the  day's  news  in  order  to  form  opinions  on  cur- 
rent events  and  issues.  Again,  for  the  average  citizen  the 
newspaper  is  almost  the  only  medium  for  the  interpreta- 
tion and  discussion  of  questions  of  the  day  .A  The  compos- 
ite of  individual  opinions,  which  we  call  public  opinion, 
must  express  itself  in  action  to  be  effective.  The  news- 
paper, with  its  daily  reiteration,  is  the  most  powerful  force 
in  urging  citizens  to  act  in  accordance  with  their  convic- 
tions. By  reflecting  the  best  sentiment  of  the  community 
in  which  it  is  published,  the  newspaper  makes  articulate 
intelligent  public  opinion  that  might  otherwise  remain 
unexpressed.  Since  the  success  of  democracy  depends 
not  only  upon  intelligent  public  opinion  but  upon  political 
action  in  accordance  with  such  opinion,  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  the  future  of  democratic  government  in  this 
country  depends  upon  the  character  of  its  newspapers. 

Yet  most  newspaper  readers  not  unnaturally  regard  the 
daily  paper  as  an  ephemeral  thing  to  be  read  hurriedly  and 
cast  aside.  Few  appreciate  the  extent  to  which  their  opin- 
ions are  affected  by  the  newspaper  they  read.  Neverthe- 
less, to  every  newspaper  reader  —  which  means  almost 
every  person  in  this  country  —  the  conditions  under  which 
newspapers  are  produced  and  the  influences  that  affect  the 


x  INTRODUCTION 

character  of  news  and  editorials,  should  be  matters  of  vital 
concern. 

To  newspaper  workers  and  students  of  journalism  the 
analysis  of  the  fundamental  questions  of  their  profession 
is  of  especial  importance.  Discussion  of  current  practices 
must  precede  all  effort  to  arrive  at  definite  standards  for 
the  profession  of  journalism.  Only  when  the  newspaper 
man  realizes  the  probable  effect  of  his  work  on  the  ideas 
and  ideals  of  thousands  of  readers,  and  hence  on  the  char- 
acter of  our  democracy,  does  he  appreciate  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  his  news  story,  headline,  or  editorial. 

The  modern  newspaper  has  developed  so  recently  from 
simple  beginnings  into  a  great,  complex  institution  that 
no  systematic  and  extensive  study  has  been  made  of  its 
problems.  Journalism  has  won  recognition  as  a  profession 
only  within  the  last  seventy-five  years,  and  professional 
schools  for  the  training  of  newspaper  writers  and  editors 
have  been  in  existence  less  than  fifteen  years.  In  view  of 
these  conditions,  it  is  not  surprising  that  definite  principles 
and  a  generally  accepted  code  of  ethics  for  the  practice  of 
the  profession  have  not  been  formulated. 

Ideal  conditions  of  newspaper  editing  and  publishing  are 
not  likely  to  be  brought  about  by  legislation.  So  jealous 
are  the  American  people  of  the  liberty  of  their  press  that 
they  hesitate,  even  when  their  very  existence  as  a  nation 
is  threatened,  to  impose  legal  restrictions  on  the  printing  of 
news  and  opinion.  If  regulation  does  come,  it  should  be 
the  result,  as  it  has  been  in  the  professions  of  law  and 
medicine,  of  the  creation  of  an  enlightened  public  opinion 
in  support  of  professional  standards  adopted  by  journalists 
themselves. 

The  present  is  an  auspicious  time  to  discuss  such  stand- 
ards. The  world  war  has  put  to  the  test,  not  only  men  and 
machinery,  but  every  institution  of  society.  Of  each  or- 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

ganized  activity  we  ask,  Is  it  serving  most  effectively  the 
common  good?  Not  simply  service  to  the  state,  but  serv- 
ice to  society,  is  being  demanded  more  and  more  of  every 
individual  and  every  institution.  "These  are  the  times 
which  try  men's  souls,"  and  that  try  no  less  the  mediums 
through  which  men's  souls  find  expression.  The  news- 
paper, as  the  purveyor  of  "food  of  opinion"  and  as  the 
medium  for  expressing  opinion,  must  measure  up  to  the 
test  of  the  times. 

ii 

The  first  step  in  a  systematic  analysis  of  the  principles 
of  journalism  must  be  a  consideration  of  the  function  of 
the  newspaper  in  a  democracy.  In  the  varied  and  volumi- 
nous contents  of  a  typical  newspaper  are  to  be  found  news 
of  all  kinds,  editorial  comment,  illustrations  of  current 
events,  recipes,  comic  strips,  fashions,  cartoons,  advice  on 
affairs  of  the  heart,  short  stories,  answers  to  questions  on 
etiquette,  dramatic  criticism,  chapters  of  a  serial,  book 
reviews,  verse,  a  "  colyum,"  and  advertisements.  What  in 
this  melange  is  the  one  element  which  distinguishes  the 
newspaper  from  all  other  publications?  It  is  the  daily 
news.  Weekly  and  monthly  periodicals  do  everything 
that  the  newspaper  does,  except  print  the  news  from  day 
to  day. 

Whatever  other  aims  a  newspaper  may  have,  its  pri- 
mary purpose  must  be  to  give  adequate  reports  of  the  day's 
news.  Although  various  inducements  other  than  news 
may  be  employed  to  attract  some  persons  to  newspapers 
who  would  not  otherwise  read  them  regularly,  neverthe- 
less these  features  must  not  be  so  prominent  or  attractive 
that  readers  with  limited  time  at  their  disposal  will  neglect 
the  day's  news  for  entertainment. 

To  assist  the  public  to  grasp  the  significance  of  the  news 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

by  means  of  editorial  interpretation  and  discussion,  to 
render  articulate  the  best  public  sentiment,  and  to  per- 
suade citizens  to  act  in  accordance  with  their  opinions, 
constitute  an  important  secondary  function  of  the  news- 
paper. Even  though  the  editorial  may  seem  to  exert  a 
less  direct  influence  upon  the  opinions  and  political  action 
of  the  average  citizen  than  it  did  in  the  period  of  great 
editorial  leadership,  nevertheless  the  interpretation  and 
discussion  of  timely  topics  in  the  editorial  columns  of 
the  daily  press  are  a  force  in  democratic  government  that 
cannot  be  disregarded. 

Newspapers  by  their  editorials  can  perform  two  pecul- 
iarly important  services  to  the  public.  First,  they  can 
show  the  relation  of  state,  national,  and  international  ques- 
tions to  the  home  and  business  interests  of  their  readers. 
Only  as  the  great  issues  of  the  day  are  brought  home  to 
the  average  reader  is  he  likely  to  become  keenly  interested 
in  their  solution.  Second,  newspapers  in  their  editorials 
can  point  out  the  connection  between  local  questions  and 
state-wide,  nation-wide,  or  world-wide  movements.  Only 
as  questions  at  issue  in  a  community  are  shown  in  their 
relation  to  larger  tendencies  will  the  average  reader  see 
them  in  a  perspective  that  will  enable  him  to  think  and 
act  most  intelligently. 

In  addition  to  fulfilling  these  two  functions,  the  news- 
paper may  supply  its  readers  with  practical  advice  and 
useful  information,  as  well  as  with  entertaining  reading 
matter  and  illustrations.  There  is  more  justification  for 
wholesome  advice  and  entertainment  in  newspapers  that 
circulate  largely  among  classes  whose  only  reading  matter 
is  the  daily  paper  than  there  is  in  papers  whose  readers 
obtain  these  features  from  other  periodicals.  In  view  of 
the  numberless  cheap,  popular  magazines  in  this  country, 
the  extent  to  which  daily  newspapers  should  devote  space 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

and  money  to  advice  and  entertainment  deserves  careful 
consideration.  That  without  such  consideration  these 
features  may  encroach  unjustifiably  on  news  and  edito- 
rials seems  evident. 

in 

Since  the  primary  function  of  the  newspaper  is  to  give 
the  day's  news,  the  question  arises,  What  is  news?  If  from 
the  point  of  view  of  successful  democracy  the  value  of 
news  is  determined  by  the  extent  to  which  it  furnishes 
food  for  thought  on  current  topics,  we  are  at  once  given 
an  important  criterion  for  defining  news  and  measuring 
news- values.  Thus,  news  is  anything  timely  which  is  sig- 
nificant to  newspaper  readers  in  their  relation  to  the  com- 
munity, the  state,  and  the  nation. 

This  conception  of  news  is  not  essentially  at  variance 
with  the  commonly  accepted  definition  of  it  as  anything 
timely  that  interests  a  number  of  readers,  the  best  news 
being  that  which  has  greatest  interest  for  the  greatest 
number.  The  most  vital  matters  for  both  men  and  women 
are  their  home  and  then-  business  interests,  their  success 
and  their  happiness.  Anything  in  the  day's  news  that 
touches  directly  or  indirectly  these  things  that  are  nearest 
and  dearest  to  them,  they  will  read  with  eagerness.  As 
they  may  not  always  be  able  to  see  at  once  the  relation  of 
current  events  and  issues  to  their  home,  business,  and 
community  interests,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  newspaper  to 
present  news  in  such  a  way  that  its  significance  to  the 
average  reader  will  be  clear.  Every  newspaper  man  knows 
the  value  of  "playing  up"  the  "local  ends"  of  events  that 
take  place  outside  of  the  community  in  which  his  paper  is 
published,  but  this  method  of  bringing  home  to  readers 
the  significance  to  them  of  important  news  has  not  been 
as  fully  worked  out  as  it  will  be.  On  this  basis  the  best 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

news  is  that  which  can  be  shown  to  be  most  closely  related 
to  the  interests  of  the  largest  number  of  readers. 

"But  newspapers  must  publish  entertaining  news  stories 
as  well  as  significant  ones,"  insists  the  advocate  of  things 
as  they  are.  This  may  be  conceded,  but  only  with  three 
important  limitations.  First,  stories  for  mere  entertain- 
ment that  deal  with  events  of  little  or  no  news-value  must 
not  be  allowed  to  crowd  out  significant  news.  Second,  such 
entertaining  news-matter  must  not  be  given  so  much  space 
and  prominence,  or  be  made  so  attractive,  that  the  aver- 
age reader  with  but  limited  time  in  which  to  read  his  paper 
will  neglect  news  of  value.  Third,  events  of  importance 
must  not  be  so  treated  as  to  furnish  entertainment  pri- 
marily, to  the  subordination  of  their  true  significance.  To 
substitute  the  hors  d'ceuvres,  relishes,  and  dessert  of  the  day's 
happenings  for  nourishing  "food  of  opinion"  is  to  serve  an 
unbalanced,  unwholesome  mental  diet.  The  relish  should 
heighten,  not  destroy,  a  taste  for  good  food. 


IV 

In  order  to  furnish  the  average  citizen  with  material  from 
which  to  form  opinions  on  all  current  issues,  so  that  he 
may  vote  intelligently  on  men  and  measures,  newspapers 
must  supply  significant  news  in  as  complete  and  as  accu- 
rate a  form  as  possible.  The  only  important  limitations 
to  completeness  are  those  imposed  by  the  commonly 
accepted  ideas  of  decency  embodied  in  the  phrase,  "All  the 
news  that's  fit  to  print,"  and  by  the  rights  of  privacy. 
Carefully  edited  newspapers  discriminate  between  what 
the  public  is  entitled  to  know  and  what  an  individual  has 
a  right  to  keep  private. 

Inaccuracy,  due  to  the  necessity  for  speed  in  getting 
news  into  print,  most  newspapers  agree  must  be  reduced 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

to  a  minimum.  The  establishment  of  bureaus  of  accuracy, 
and  constant  emphasis  on  such  mottoes  as  "Accuracy 
First,"  "Accuracy  Always,"  and  "If  you  see  it  in  the  Sun, 
it's  so,"  are  steps  in  that  direction. 

Deliberate  falsification  of  news  for  any  purpose,  good  or 
bad,  must  be  regarded  as  an  indefensible  violation  of  the 
fundamental  purpose  of  the  press.  Any  cause,  no  matter 
how  worthy  it  may  be,  which  cannot  depend  on  facts  and 
truth  for  its  support  does  not  deserve  to  have  facts  and 
truth  distorted  in  its  behalf. 

The  "faking"  of  news  can  never  be  harmless.  Even 
though  the  fictitious  touches  in  an  apparently  innocent 
"human-interest "or  "feature"  story  maybe  recognized  by 
most  readers,  yet  the  effect  is  harmful.  "It's  only  a  news- 
paper story,"  expresses  the  all-too-common  attitude  of  a 
public  whose  confidence  hi  the  reliability  of  newspapers 
has  been  undermined  by  news  stories  wholly  or  partially 
"faked." 

The  "coloring,"  adulteration,  and  suppression  of  news  as 
"food  of  opinion"  is  as  dangerous  to  ithe  body  politic  as 
similar  manipulation  of  food-stuffs  was  to  the  physical 
bodies  of  our  people  before  such  practices  were  forbidden 
by  law.  How  completely  the  opinions  and  moral  judg- 
ments of  a  whole  nation  may  be  perverted  by  deliberate 
"coloring"  and  suppression  of  news,  in  this  case  by  its  own 
government,  was  demonstrated  in  Germany  immediately 
before  and  during  the  world  war. 

The  jury  of  newspaper  readers  must  have  "the  truth, 
the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,"  if  it  is  to  give 
an  intelligent  verdict. 


The  so-called  "yellow  journals"  are  glaring  examples  of 
newspapers  built  up  on  news  and  editorial  policies  shaped 


J   tf 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

to  attract  undiscriminating  readers  by  sensational  methods. 
By  constantly  emphasizing  sensational  news  and  by  "sen- 
sationalizing" and  "  melodramatizing  "  news  that  is  not 
sufficiently  startling,  as  well  as  by  editorials  stirring  up 
class  feeling  among  the  masses  against  the  monied  and 
ruling  classes,  "yellow  journals"  have  been  able  to  out- 
strip all  other  papers  in  circulation. 

Unquestionably  the  most  serious  aspect  of  the  influence 
of  sensational  and  yellow  journalism  is  the  distorted  view 
of  life  thus  given.  Because  these  papers  are  widely  read 
by  the  partially  assimilated  groups  of  foreign  immigrants 
in  large  centres  of  population,  like  New  York  and  Chicago, 
they  exert  a  particularly  dangerous  influence  by  giving 
these  future  citizens  a  wrong  conception  of  American 
society  and  government.  That  the  false  ideas  of  our  life 
and  institutions  given  to  foreign  elements  of  our  popula- 
tion while  they  are  in  the  process  of  becoming  American- 
ized are  a  serious  menace  to  this  country,  requires  no  proof. 
No  matter  who  the  readers  may  be,  however,  news  that 
is  "colored"  to  appear  "yellow,"  and  misleading  editorials, 
will  always  be  dangerous  to  the  public  welfare. 


VI 

tional  events,  particularly  those 
undoubtedly  constitutes  one 
all  newspapers.  The  demoral- 
izing effect  of  accounts  of  criminal  and  vicious  acts,  when 
read  by  immature  and  morally  unstable  individuals,  is 
generally  admitted.  On  the  other  hand,  fear  of  publicity 
and  consequent  disgrace  to  the  wrong-doer  and  his  family, 
is  a  powerful  deterrent.  Moreover,  if  newspapers  sup- 
pressed news  of  crime  and  vice,  citizens  might  remain 
ignorant  of  the  extent  to  which  they  existed  in  the  com- 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

munity,  and  consequently,  with  the  aid  of  a  corrupt  local 
government,  wrong-doing  might  flourish  until  it  was  a 
menace  to  every  member  of  the  community. 

To  give  sufficient  publicity  to  news  of  crime  and  scandal 
in  order  to  provide  the  necessary  deterrent  effect,  to  fur- 
nish readers  with  the  information  to  which  they  are  en- 
titled, and  at  the  same  time  to  present  such  news  so  that 
it  will  not  give  offense  or  encourage  morally  weak  readers 
to  emulate  the  criminal  and  the  vicious,  define  the  middle 
course  which  exponents  of  constructive  journalism  must 
steer. 

vn 

Criticisms  of  the  newspaper  of  the  present  day  should 
not  leave  us  with  the  impression  that  the  American  press 
is  deteriorating.  No  one  who  compares  the  newspaper  of 
to-day  with  its  predecessors  of  fifty,  seventy-five,  or  a 
hundred  years  ago,  can  fail  to  appreciate  how  immeasur- 
ably superior  in  every  respect  is  the  press  of  the  present 
day.  In  our  newspapers  now  there  is  much  less  of  narrow 
political  partisanship,  much  less  of  editorial  vituperation 
and  personal  abuse,  much  less  of  objectionable  advertising, 
and  relatively  less  news  of  crime  and  scandal.  Viewed 
from  a  distance  of  more  than  half  a  century,  great  American 
editors  loom  large,  but  a  critical  study  of  the  papers  they 
edited  shows  their  limitations.  They  were  pioneers  in  a 
new  land,  —  for  modern  journalism  began  but  eighty-five 
years  ago,  —  and  as  such,  they  deserve  all  honor  for  blaz- 
ing the  trail;  but  we  must  not  be  blind  to  the  defects  of 
the  papers  that  they  produced,  any  more  than  we  may 
overlook  the  faults  of  the  press  of  our  own  day. 

The  period  of  the  struggle  against  slavery  culminating 
in  the  Civil  War  was  one  of  great  editorial  leadership.  To 
say  that  it  was  the  era  of  great  "views-papers"  and  that 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

the  present  is  the  day  of  great  "news-papers"  is  to  sum  up 
the  essential  difference  between  the  two  periods.  In  terms 
of  democratic  government,  this  means  that  citizens  of  the 
older  day  were  accustomed  to  accept  as  their  own,  political 
opinions  furnished  them  ready-made  by  their  favorite 
editor,  whereas  voters  to-day  want  to  form  their  own  opin- 
ions on  the  basis  of  the  news  and  editorials  furnished  them 
by  their  favorite  paper.  This  greater  independence  of  judg- 
ment, with  its  corollary,  greater  independence  in  voting, 
is  a  long  step  forward  toward  a  more  complete  democracy. 


VIII 

The  recent  development  of  community  spirit  as  a  means 
of  realizing  more  fully  the  ideals  of  democracy  by  fostering 
greater  solidarity  among  the  diverse  elements  of  our  popu- 
lation, has  been  reflected  in  the  news  policies  of  many 
papers.  By  "playing  up"  news  that  tends  to  the  upbuild- 
big  of  the  community,  and  by  "playing  down,"  and  even 
eliminating  entirely,  news  that  tends  to  exert  an  unwhole- 
some influence,  newspapers  in  various  parts  of  the  country 
have  developed  a  type  of  constructive  journalism.  Such 
consideration  for  the  effect  of  news  on  readers  as  members 
of  the  community,  and  hence  on  community  life,  is  one 
of  the  most  important  forward  steps  taken  by  the  modern 
newspaper. 

Although  occasion  may  arise  from  time  to  time  for  news- 
papers to  turn  the  searchlight  of  publicity  on  social  and 
political  corruption,  the  feeling  is  gaining  strength  that 
newspaper  crusades  in  the  interests  of  institutions  and 
movements  making  for  community  uplift  are  even  more 
important  than  the  continued  exposure  of  evils.  Many 
aggressive,  crusading  papers,  accordingly,  have  turned 
from  a  policy  of  exposing  such  conditions  to  the  construe- 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

live  purpose  of  showing  how  various  agencies  may  be 
used  for  community  development.  "Searchlight "  journal- 
ism is  thus  giving  way  to  "sunlight"  journalism.  A  con- 
structive policy  that  aims  to  handle  local  news  and  "local 
ends"  of  all  news  in  such  a  manner  that  they  will  exert  a 
wholesome,  upbuilding  influence  on  the  community,  is  one 
of  the  most  potent  forces  making  for  a  better  democracy. 

IX 

With  the  entry  of  the  United  States  into  world-affairs  in 
cooperation  with  other  nations,  a  new  duty  was  placed 
upon  the  American  press.  For  a  number  of  years  before 
the  world  war  the  amount  of  foreign  news  in  the  average 
American  newspaper  was  very  limited.  With  the  decline 
of  weekly  letters  from  foreign  countries  written  by  well- 
known  correspondents,  and  the  reliance  by  newspapers  on 
the  great  press  associations  for  foreign  news,  readers  had 
had  relatively  less  news  of  importance  from  abroad  than 
formerly.  The  world  war  naturally  changed  this  condi- 
tion completely. 

Unless  the  United  States  decides  finally  to  return  to  its 
former  policy  of  isolation,  American  citizens  must  be  kept 
in  touch  with  important  movements  in  other  nations,  so 
that  they  can  form  intelligent  opinions  in  regard  to  the 
relation  of  this  country  to  these  nations.  Since  the  daily 
newspaper  is  the  principal  medium  for  presenting  such 
news,  it  is  clear  that  newspapers  must  be  prepared  to 
present  significant  foreign  news  in  such  a  manner  that  it 
will  attract  readers,  by  connecting  it  with  their  interests 
as  American  citizens. 


How  the  future  will  solve  the  problems  of  journalism 
must  be  largely  a  matter  of  conjecture.    Temporarily  the 


xx  INTRODUCTION 

world  war  has  given  rise  to  peculiar  problems,  none  of 
which,  however,  seems  likely  to  have  permanent  effects  on 
our  newspapers.  Censorship  of  news  and  of  editorial  dis- 
cussion has  precipitated  anew  the  ever-perplexing  question 
of  the  exact  limits  of  the  liberty  of  the  press  in  war  times. 
War,  too,  has  made  clearer  the  pernicious  influence  result- 
ing from  the  dissemination  throughout  the  world  of  "col- 
ored" news  by  means  of  semi-official  news  agencies  sub- 
sidized and  controlled  by  some  of  the  European  nations. 
The  extent  to  which  a  whole  nation  may  be  kept  in  the 
dark  by  government  control  of  news  and  discussion,  as 
well  as  the  impossibility  of  other  nations  getting  impor- 
tant information  to  the  people  of  such  a  country,  has  been 
strikingly  exemplified  by  Germany  and  Austro-Hungary. 
The  need  of  definite  provision  for  international  freedom  of 
the  press  has  been  pom  ted  out  as  an  essential  factor  in  any 
programme  for  permanent  peace. 

The  rise  in  the  price  of  print  paper  and  increased  cost 
of  production,  largely  the  result  of  war  conditions,  have 
led  so  generally  to  the  raising  of  the  price  of  papers  from 
one  to  two  cents  that  the  penny  paper  bids  fair  to  dis- 
appear entirely.  This  increase  in  price  has  not  apprecia- 
bly reduced  circulation.  To  economize  in  the  use  of 
paper  during  the  war,  many  papers  have  reduced  the 
number  of  pages  by  cutting  down  the  amount  of  reading 
matter.  Whether  or  not  these  changes  will  continue 
when  normal  conditions  of  business  are  restored  cannot 
be  predicted. 

Endowed  newspapers,  municipal  newspapers,  and  even 
university  newspapers,  have  been  proposed  as  possible 
solutions  of  the  problems  of  the  press.  Of  these  proposals 
only  one,  the  municipal  newspaper,  has  had  a  trial,  and 
even  that  has  not  been  tried  under  conditions  that  permit 
any  conclusions  as  to  its  feasibility.  Although  there  has 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

been  a  marked  tendency,  hastened  by  the  war,  toward 
government  ownership  or  control  of  railroad,  telegraph, 
and  telephone  lines,  which,  like  newspapers,  are  private 
enterprises  that  perform  a  public  function,  there  has  been 
no  corresponding  movement  looking  toward  ownership  or 
control  of  newspapers  by  the  federal,  state,  or  local  govern- 
ment. 

Effective  organization  of  newspaper  writers  and  editors 
has  been  urged  as  a  means  of  establishing  definite  stand- 
ards for  the  profession.  It  seems  remarkable  that  in  this 
age  of  organization  newspaper  workers  are  the  only  mem- 
bers of  a  great  profession  who  have  no  national  associa- 
tion. Newspaper  publishers,  circulation  managers,  adver- 
tising men,  and  the  editor-publishers  of  weekly  and  small 
daily  newspapers  have  such  organizations.  For  free-lance 
writers  there  is  the  Authors'  League  of  America.  In  several 
Middle  Western  states  organizations  of  city  editors  have 
been  effected;  but  a  movement  to  unite  them  into  a  na- 
tional association  has  not  as  yet  made  much  progress. 

Two  national  newspaper  conferences  have  been  held 
under  academic  auspices  to  discuss  the  problems  of  jour- 
nalism, the  first  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin  in  1912, 
and  the  second  at  the  University  of  Kansas,  two  years 
later.  Although  a  number  of  leaders  in  the  profession  took 
part  in  the  programmes  and  interesting  discussion  resulted, 
the  attendance  of  newspaper  workers  was  not  sufficiently 
large  to  be  representative  of  the  country  as  a  whole,  and 
no  permanent  organization  was  effected. 

That  a  national  organization  of  newspaper  men  and 
women  is  neither  impossible  nor  ineffectual  has  been  dem- 
onstrated in  Great  Britain,  where  three  of  such  associations 
have  been  active  for  a  number  of  years.  The  Institute  of 
Journalists  of  Great  Britain,  an  association  of  newspaper 
editors  and  proprietors,  holds  an  annual  conference  for  the 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

discussion  of  current  questions  in  journalism  and  has  had 
as  its  head  such  distinguished  journalists  as  Robert  Donald 
of  the  London  Daily  Chronicle,  A.  G.  Gardiner  of  the 
London  Daily  News,  and  J.  L.  Garvin,  formerly  editor  of 
the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  and  now  editor  of  the  Observer.  The 
other  associations  are  the  National  Union  of  Journalists, 
composed  exclusively  of  newspaper  workers,  which  main- 
tains "branches"  and  "district  councils"  in  addition  to  the 
national  association;  and  the  Society  of  Women  Journal- 
ists. 

XI 

There  is  no  one  simple  solution  for  the  complex  prob- 
lems of  journalism.  In  so  far  as  the  newspaper  is  a  private 
business  enterprise,  it  will  continue  to  adjust  itself  to  the 
steadily  advancing  standards  of  the  business  world.  "Serv- 
ice," the  new  watch  word  in  business,  is  already  being  taken 
up  by  the  business  departments  of  newspapers  in  relation 
to  both  advertisers  and  readers.  The  rejection  of  objec- 
tionable advertising  and  the  guaranteeing  of  all  advertis- 
ing published  have  been  among  the  first  steps  taken  toward 
serving  both  readers  and  honest  business  men  by  protect- 
ing them  against  unscrupulous  advertisers.  When  it  is 
generally  accepted  in  the  business  world  that  service,  as 
well  as  honesty,  is  the  best  policy,  no  newspaper  can  long 
afford  to  pursue  any  other. 

Nor  need  private  ownership  be  a  menace  to  the  com- 
pleteness and  accuracy  with  which  newspapers  present 
news  and  opinion.  Just  as  business  men  are  coming  to 
realize  that  truthful  advertising  is  most  effective  and  that 
a  satisfied  customer  is  the  best  advertiser,  so  newspapers 
are  coming  more  and  more  to  appreciate  the  fact  that 
accuracy  and  fair  play  in  news  and  editorials  are  also  "good 
business."  Neither  the  public  nor  a  majority  of  editors 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

and  publishers  can  afford  to  permit  unscrupulous  private 
ownership  to  impair  seriously  the  usefulness  and  integrity 
of  any  newspaper. 

In  so  far  as  the  newspaper  performs  a  public  function, 
its  usefulness  will  be  measured  by  the  character  of  the 
service  that  it  renders.  Its  standing  will  be  determined  by 
the  extent  to  which  it  serves  faithfully  the  community, 
the  state,  and  the  nation.  Whatever  principles  are  formu- 
lated and  whatever  code  is  adopted  for  the  profession  of 
journalism  will  be  based  on  the  fundamental  idea  of  serv- 
ice to  the  people — to  the  masses  as  well  as  to  the  classes. 

Newspaper  workers,  from  the  "cub"  reporter  to  the  edi- 
tor-in-chief, will  be  recognized  as  public  servants,  not  as 
mere  employees  of  a  private  business.  The  high  standards 
maintained  by  them  in  newspaper  offices  will  reinforce  the 
ideal  of  public  service  held  up  before  college  men  and 
women  preparing  themselves  for  journalism.  The  public 
will  understand  more  fully  than  it  ever  has  done  the  neces- 
sity of  supporting  heartily  the  standards  established  by 
newspapers  themselves.  Requests  to  "keep  it  out  of  the 
paper  "  and  threats  of  "stop  my  paper  "  will  be  less  frequent 
when  advertisers,  business  men,  and  readers  see  that  such 
attempts  at  coercion  are  an  indefensible  interference  with 
an  institution  whose  first  duty  is  to  the  public. 

With  an  ever- increasing  appreciation  of  the  value  of  its 
service  in  business  relations  and  with  an  ever-broadening 
conception  of  its  duties  and  responsibilities,  the  newspaper 
of  to-morrow  may  be  depended  on  to  do  its  part  in  the 
greatest  of  all  national  and  international  tasks,  that  of 
"making  the  world  safe  for  democracy." 


THE  PROFESSION  OF  JOURNALISM 
SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM 

BY   ROLLO   OGDEN 


IT  is,  in  a  way,  a  form  of  flattery,  in  the  eyes  of  modern 
journalism,  that  it  should  be  put  on  its  defense  —  added 
to  the  fascinating  list  of  "problems."  This  is  a  tribute  to 
its  importance.  The  compliment  may  often  seem  oblique. 
An  editor  will,  at  times,  feel  himself  placed  in  much  the 
same  category  as  a  famous  criminal  —  a  warning,  a  hor- 
rible example,  a  target  for  reproof,  but  still  an  interesting 
object.  That  last  is  the  redeeming  feature.  If  the  news- 
paper of  tcnday  can  only  be  sure  that  it  excites  interest  in 
the  multitude,  it  is  content.  For  to  force  itself  upon  the 
general  notice  is  the  main  purpose  of  its  spirit  of  shrill 
insistence,  which  so  many  have  noted  and  so  many  have 
disliked. 

But  the  clamorous  and  assertive  tone  of  the  daily  press 
may  charitably  be  thought  of  as  a  natural  reaction  from 
its  low  estate  of  a  few  generations  back.  Upstart  families 
or  races  usually  have  bad  manners,  and  the  newspaper,  as 
we  know  it,  is  very  much  of  an  upstart.  For  long,  its  lot 
was  contempt  and  contumely.  In  the  first  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  writing  in  general  was  reduced  to 
extremities.  Dr.  Johnson  says  of  Richard  Savage  that, 
"having  no  profession,  he  became  by  necessity  an  author/* 
But  there  was  a  lower  deep,  and  that  was  journalism. 
Warburton  wrote  of  one  who  is  chiefly  known  by  being 
pilloried  in  the  Dunciad  that  he  "ended  in  the  common 


2  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM 

sink  of  all  such  writers,  a  political  newspaper."  Even 
later  it  was  recorded  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Dodd,  author  of  the 
Beauties  of  Shakespeare,  that  he  "descended  so  low  as  to 
become  editor  of  a  newspaper."  After  that,  but  one  step 
remained  —  to  the  gallows;  and  this  was  duly  taken  by 
Dr.  Dodd  in  1777,  when  he  was  hanged  for  forgery.  A 
calling  digged  from  such  a  pit  may,  without  our  special 
wonder,  display  something  of  the  push  and  insolence  nat- 
ural in  a  class  whose  privileges  were  long  so  slender  or  so 
questioned  that  they  must  be  loudly  proclaimed  for  fear 
that  they  may  be  forgotten. 

This  flaunting  and  over-emphasis  also  go  well  with  the 
charge  that  the  press  of  to-day  is  commercialized.  That 
accusation  no  one  undertaking  to  comment  on  newspapers 
can  pass  unnoticed.  Yet  why  should  journalism  be  ex- 
empt? It  is  as  freely  asserted  that  colleges  are  commer- 
cialized; the  theatre  is  accused  of  knowing  no  standard  but 
that  of  the  box-office;  politics  has  the  money- taint  upon  it; 
and  even  the  church  is  arraigned  for  ignoring  the  teachings 
of  St.  James,  and  being  too  much  a  respecter  of  the  persons 
of  the  rieh.  If  it  is  true  that  the  commercial  spirit  rules 
the  press,  it  is  at  least  in  good  company.  In  actual  fact, 
occasional  instances  of  gross  and  unscrupulous  financial 
control  of  newspapers  for  selfish  or  base  ends  must  be  ad- 
mitted to  exist.  There  are  undoubtedly  some  editors  who 
bend  their  conscience  to  their  dealing.  Newspaper  pro- 
prietors exist  who  sell  themselves  for  gain.  But  this  is  not 
what  is  ordinarily  meant  by  the  charge  of  commercializa- 
tion. Reference  is,  rather,  to  the  newspaper  as  a  money- 
making  institution.  "When  shall  we  have  a  journal," 
asked  a  clergyman  not  long  ago,  "that  will  be  published 
without  advertisements?" 

The  answer  is,  never  —  at  least,  I  hope  so,  for  the  good 
of  American  journalism.  We  have  no  official  press.  We 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM  3 

have  no  subsidized  press.  We  have  not  even  an  endowed 
press.  What  that  would  be  in  this  country  I  can  scarcely 
imagine,  but  I  am  sure  it  would  have  little  or  no  influence. 
A  newspaper  carries  weight  only  as  it  can  point  to  evidence 
of  public  sympathy  and  support.  But  that  means  a  busi- 
ness side;  it  means  patronage;  it  means  an  eye  to  money. 
A  newspaper,  like  an  army,  goes  upon  its  belly  —  though 
it  does  not  follow  that  it  must  eat  dirt.  The  dispute  about 
being  commercialized  is  always  a  question  of  more  or  less. 
When  Horace  Greeley  founded  the  Tribune  in  1841,  he  had 
but  a  thousand  dollars  of  his  own  in  cash.  Yet  his  struggle 
to  make  the  paper  a  going  concern  was  just  as  intense  as 
if  he  were  starting  it  to-day  with  a  capital  (and  it  would 
be  needed)  of  a  million.  Greeley,  to  his  honor  be  it  said, 
refused  from  the  beginning  to  take  certain  advertisements. 
But  so  do  newspaper  proprietors  to-day  whose  expenses 
per  week  are  more  than  Greeley's  were  for  the  first  year. 
The  immensely  large  capital  now  required  for  the  con- 
duct of  a  daily  newspaper  in  a  great  city  has  had  important 
consequences.  It  has  made  the  newspaper  more  of  an 
institution,  less  of  a  personal  organ.  Men  no  longer  desig- 
nate journals  by  the  owner's  or  editor's  name.  It  used  to 
be  Bryant's  paper,  or  Greeley's  paper,  or  Raymond's,  or 
Bennett's.  Now  it  is  simply  Times,  Herald,  Tribune,  and 
so  on.  No  single  personality  can  stamp  itself  upon  the 
whole  organism.  It  is  too  vast.  It  is  a  great  piece  of  prop- 
erty, to  be  administered  with  skill;  it  is  a  carefully  planned 
organization  which  best  produces  the  effect  when  the  per- 
sonalities of  those  who  work  for  it  are  swallowed  up.  The 
individual  withers,  but  the  newspaper  is  more  and  more. 
Journalism  becomes  impersonal.  There  are  no  more  "  great 
editors,"  but  there  is  a  finer  esprit  de  corps,  better  "team 
play,"  an  institution  more  and  more  firmly  established  and 
able  to  justify  itself. 


4  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM 

Large  capital  in  newspapers,  and  their  heightened  earn- 
ing power,  tend  to  steady  them.  Freaks  and  rash  experi- 
ments are  also  shut  out  by  lack  of  means.  Greeley  reck- 
oned up  a  hundred  or  more  newspapers  that  had  died  in 
New  York  before  1850.  Since  that  time  it  would  be  hard 
to  name  ten.  I  can  remember  but  two  metropolitan  dailies 
within  twenty-five  years  that  have  absolutely  suspended 
publication.  Only  contrast  the  state  of  things  in  Parisian 
journalism.  There  must  be  at  least  thirty  daily  newspapers 
in  the  French  capital.  Few  of  them  have  the  air  of  living 
off  their  own  business.  Yet  the  necessary  capital  and  the 
cost  of  production  are  so  much  smaller  than  ours  that 
their  various  backers  can  afford  to  keep  them  afloat.  But 
this  fact  does  not  make  their  sincerity  or  purity  the  more 
evident.  On  the  contrary,  the  rumor  of  sinister  control  is 
more  frequently  circulated  in  connection  with  the  French 
press  than  with  our  own.  Our  higher  capitalization  helps 
us.  Just  because  a  great  sum  is  invested,  it  cannot  be 
imperiled  by  allowing  unscrupulous  men  to  make  use  of 
the  newspaper  property;  for  that  way  ruin  lies,  in  the  end. 
The  corrupt  employment  has  to  be  concealed.  If  it  had 
been  known  surely,  for  example,  that  Mr.  Morgan,  or  Mr. 
Ryan,  or  Mr.  Harriman  owned  a  New  York  newspaper, 
and  was  utilizing  it  as  a  means  of  furthering  his  schemes, 
support  would  speedily  have  failed  it,  and  it  would  soon 
have  dried  up  from  the  roots. 

This  give  and  take  between  the  press  and  the  public  is 
vital  to  a  just  conception  of  American  journalism.  The 
editor  does  not  nonchalantly  project  his  thoughts  into  the 
void.  He  listens  for  the  echo  of  his  words.  His  relation 
to  his  supporters  is  not  unlike  Gladstone's  definition  of  the 
intimate  connection  between  the  orator  and  his  audience. 
As  the  speaker  gets  from  his  hearers  in  mist  what  he  gives 
back  in  shower,  so  the  newspaper  receives  from  the  public 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM  5 

as  well  as  gives  to  it.  Too  often  it  gets  as  dust  what  it 
gives  back  as  mud;  but  that  does  not  alter  the  relation. 
Action  and  reaction  are  all  the  while  going  on  between  the 
press  and  its  patrons.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  more  crying  evils  of  journalism  must  be 
divided. 

I  would  urge  no  exculpation  for  the  editor  who  exploits 
crime,  scatters  filth,  and  infects  the  community  with  moral 
poison.  The  original  responsibility  is  his,  and  it  is  a  fear- 
ful one.  But  it  is  not  solely  his.  The  basest  and  most  de- 
moralizing journal  that  lives,  lives  by  public  approval 
or  tolerance.  Its  readers  and  advertisers  have  its  life  in 
their  hands.  At  a  word  from  them,  it  would  either  reform 
or  die.  They  have  the  power  of  "recall"  over  it,  as  it 
is  by  some  proposed  to  grant  the  people  a  power  of  recall 
over  bad  representatives  in  legislature  or  Congress.  The 
very  dependence  of  the  press  upon  support  gives  its  pa- 
trons the  power  of  life  and  death  over  it. 

Advertisers  are  known  to  go  to  a  newspaper  office  to  seek 
favors,  sometimes  improper,  often  innocent.  Why  should 
they,  and  mere  readers,  too,  not  exercise  their  implied  right 
to  protest  against  vulgarity,  the  exaggeration  of  the  triv- 
ial, hysteria,  indecency,  immorality ,  in  the  newspaper  which 
they  are  asked  to  buy  or  to  patronize?  To  a  journalist  of 
the  offensive  class  they  could  say:  "You  excuse  yourself 
by  alleging  that  you  simply  give  what  the  public  demands; 
but  we  say  that  your  very  assertion  is  an  insult  to  us  and 
an  outrage  upon  the  public.  You  say  that  nobody  pro- 
tests against  your  course ;  well,  we  are  here  to  protest.  You 
point  to  your  sales;  we  tell  you  that,  unless  you  mend  your 
columns,  we  will  buy  no  more."  There  lies  here,  I  am  per- 
suaded, a  vast  unused  power  for  the  toning  up  of  our 
journalism.  At  any  rate,  the  reform  of  a  free  press  in  a 
free  people  can  be  brought  about  only  by  some  such  reac- 


6  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM 

tion  of  the  medium  upon  the  instrument.  Legislation  di- 
rect would  be  powerless.  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  perceived 
this  when  he  argued  in  Parliament  against  proposals  to 
restrict  by  law  the  "licentious  press."  He  said  that,  if  the 
press  were  more  licentious  than  formerly,  it  was  because  it 
had  not  yet  got  over  the  evils  of  earlier  arbitrary  control; 
and  the  only  sure  way  to  reform  it  was  to  make  it  still  more 
free.  Romilly  would  doubtless  have  agreed  that  a  free 
people  will,  in  the  long  run,  have  as  good  newspapers  as  it 
wants  and  deserves  to  have. 

As  it  is,  public  sentiment  has  a  way,  on  occasion,  of 
speaking  through  the  press  with  astonishing  directness  and 
power.  All  the  noise  and  extravagance,  the  ignorance  and 
the  distortion,  cannot  obscure  this.  There  is  a  rough  but 
great  value  in  the  mere  publicity  which  the  newspaper 
affords.  The  free  handling  of  rulers  has  much  for  the 
credit  side.  When  Senior  was  talking  with  Thiers  in  1856, 
the  conversation  fell  upon  the  severe  press  laws  under 
Napoleon  III.  The  Englishman  said  that  perhaps  these 
were  due  to  the  license  of  newspapers  in  the  time  of  the 
foregoing  republic,  when  their  attacks  on  public  men  were 
often  the  extreme  of  scurrility.  "C'etait  horrible,"  said 
Thiers;  "mais,  pour  moi,  j'aime  mieux  6tre  gouverne  par 
des  honn£tes  gens  qu'on  traite  comme  des  voleurs,  que  par 
des  voleurs  qu'on  traite  en  bonne" tes  gens."  *  And  when 
you  have  some  powerful  robbers  to  invoke  the  popular 
verdict  upon,  there  is  nothing  like  modern  journalism  for 
doing  the  job  thoroughly.  Those  great  names  in  our  busi- 
ness and  political  firmament  which  lately  have  fallen  like 
Lucifer,  dreaded  exposure  in  the  press  most  of  all.  Courts 
and  juries  they  could  have  faced  with  equanimity;  or, 

1 "  It  is  terrible,  but  for  my  part,  I  would  rather  be  governed  by  honest 
men  who  are  treated  as  though  they  were  thieves,  than  by  thieves  who 
are  treated  as  though  they  were  honest  men."  —  ED. 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM  7 

rather,  their  lawyers  would  have  done  it  for  them  in  the 
most  beautiful  illustration  of  the  law's  delay.  But  the 
very  clamor  of  newspaper  publicity  was  like  an  embodied 
public  conscience  pronouncing  condemnation  —  every 
headline  an  officer.  I  know  of  no  other  power  on  earth  that 
could  have  stripped  away  from  these  rogues  every  shel- 
ter which  their  money  could  buy,  and  have  been  to  them 
such  an  advance  section  of  the  Day  of  Judgment.  In  the 
immense  publicity  that  dogged  them  they  saw  that  worst 
of  all  punishments  described  by  Shelley:  — 

—  when  thou  must  appear  to  be 

That  which  thou  art  internally; 

And  after  many  a  false  and  fruitless  crime, 

Scorn  track  thy  lagging  fall. 


II 

It  is,  no  doubt,  a  belief  in  this  honestly  and  whole- 
somely scourging  power  of  newspapers  which  has  made  the 
champions  of  modern  democracy  champions  also  of  the 
freedom  of  the  press.  It  has  not  been  seriously  hampered 
or  shackled  in  this  country;  but  the  history  of  its  eman- 
cipation from  burdensome  taxation  in  England  shows  how 
the  progressive  and  reactionary  motives  or  temperaments 
come  to  view.  When  Gladstone  was  laboring,  fifty  years 
ago,  to  remove  the  last  special  tax  upon  newspapers,  Lord 
Salisbury  —  he  was  then  Lord  Robert  Cecil  —  opposed 
him  with  some  of  his  finest  sneers.  Could  it  be  maintained 
that  a  person  of  any  education  could  learn  anything  from 
a  penny  paper?  It  might  be  said  that  the  people  would 
learn  from  the  press  what  had  been  uttered  by  their  repre- 
sentatives in  Parliament,  but  how  much  would  that  add 
to  their  education?  They  might  even  discover  the  opin- 
ions of  the  editor.  All  this  was  very  interesting,  but  it  did 


8  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM 

not  carry  real  instruction  to  the  mind.  To  talk  about  a 
tax  on  newspapers  being  a  tax  on  knowledge  was  a  pros- 
titution of  real  education.  And  so  on.  But  contrast  this 
with  John  Bright 's  opinion.  In  a  letter  written  in  1885, 
but  not  published  till  this  year,  he  said :  "  Few  men  in  Eng- 
land owe  so  much  to  the  press  as  I  do.  Its  progress  has 
been  very  great.  I  was  one  of  those  who  worked  earnestly 
to  overthrow  the  system  of  taxation  which  from  the  time 
of  Queen  Anne  had  fettered,  I  might  almost  say,  strangled 
it  out  of  existence.  ...  I  hope  the  editors  and  conduc- 
tors of  our  journals  may  regard  themselves  as  under  a  great 
responsibility,  as  men  engaged  in  the  great  work  of  in- 
structing and  guiding  our  people.  ...  On  the  faithful 
performance  of  their  duties,  on  their  truthfulness  and  their 
adherence  to  the  moral  law,  the  future  of  our  country 
depends." 

To  pass  from  these  ideals  to  the  tendencies  and  per- 
plexities of  newspapers  as  they  are  is  not  possible  without 
the  sensation  of  a  jar.  For  specimens  of  the  faults  found 
in  even  the  reputable  press  by  fair-minded  men  we  may 
turn  to  a  recent  address  before  a  university  audience  by 
Professor  Butcher.  Admitting  that  journalism  had  never 
before  been  "so  many-sided,  so  well  informed,  so  intellect- 
ually alert,"  he  yet  noted  several  literary  and  moral  defects. 
Of  these  he  dwelt  first  upon  "hasty  production."  "For- 
merly, the  question  was,  who  is  to  have  the  last  word;  now 
it  is  a  wild  race  between  journalists  as  to  who  will  get  the 
first  word."  The  professor  found  the  marks  of  hurry 
written  all  over  modern  newspapers.  Breathless  haste 
could  not  but  affect  the  editorial  style.  "It  is  smartly 
pictorial,  restless,  impatient,  emphatic."  This  charge  no 
editor  of  a  daily  paper  can  find  it  in  his  heart  confidently 
to  attempt  to  repel.  His  work  has  to  be  done  under  nar- 
row and  cramping  conditions  of  time.  The  hour  of  going 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM  9 

to  press  is  ever  before  him  as  an  inexorable  fate.  And  that 
judgments  formed  and  opinions  expressed  under  such 
stress  are  often  of  a  sort  that  one  would  fain  withdraw,  no 
sane  writer  for  the  press  thinks  of  denying.  This  ancient 
handicap  of  the  pressman  was  described  by  Cowper  in 
1780.  "I  began  to  think  better  of  his  [Burke's]  cause," 
he  wrote  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Unwin,  "and  burnt  my  verses. 
Such  is  the  lot  of  the  man  who  writes  upon  the  subject  of 
the  day;  the  aspect  of  affairs  changes  in  an  hour  or  two, 
and  his  opinion  with  it;  what  was  just  and  well-deserved 
satire  in  the  morning,  in  the  evening  becomes  a  libel;  the 
author  commences  his  own  judge,  and,  while  he  condemns 
with  unrelenting  severity  what  he  so  lately  approved,  is 
sorry  to  find  that  he  has  laid  his  leaf  gold  upon  touch- 
wood, which  crumbled  away  under  his  finger." 

While  all  this  is  sorrowfully  true,  —  to  none  so  sorrowful 
as  those  who  have  it  frequently  borne  in  upon  them  by 
personal  experience,  —  it  is,  after  all,  du  metier.  It  is  a 
condition  under  which  the  work  must  be  done,  or  not  at  all. 
A  public  which  occasionally  disapproves  of  a  newspaper  too 
quick  on  the  trigger  would  not  put  up  at  all  with  one 
which  held  its  fire  too  long.  And  there  is,  when  all  is  said, 
a  good  deal  of  the  philosophy  of  life  in  the  compulsion  to 
"go  to  press."  Only  in  that  spirit  can  the  rough  work  of 
the  world  get  done.  The  artist  may  file  and  polish  end- 
lessly; the  genius  may  brood;  but  the  newspaper  man 
must  cut  short  his  search  for  the  full  thought  or  the  per- 
fect phrase,  and  get  into  type  with  the  best  at  the  moment 
attainable.  At  any  rate,  this  makes  for  energy  decision, 
and  a  ready  practicality.  Life  is  made  up  of  such  com- 
promises, such  forced  adjustments,  such  constant  striving 
for  the  ideal  with  the  necessitated  acceptance  of  the 
closest  approach  to  it  possible,  as  are  of  the  very  atmos- 
phere in  the  office  of  a  daily  newspaper.  But  the  result  is 

3 


10  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM 

got.  The  pressure  may  be  bad  for  literary  technique  but 
at  all  events  it  forces  out  the  work.  If  Lord  Acton  had 
known  something  of  the  driving  motives  of  a  journalist, 
he  would  not  have  spent  fifty  years  collecting  material  for 
a  great  history  of  liberty,  and  then  died  before  being  quite 
persuaded  in  his  own  mind  that  he  was  ready  to  write  it. 
The  counsel  of  wisdom  which  Mr.  Brooke  gives  in  Middle- 
march  need  never  be  addressed  to  a  newspaper  writer;  that 
he  must  "pull  up"  in  time,  every  day  teaches  him. 

Professor  Butcher  also  drew  an  ingenious  parallel  be- 
tween the  Sophists  of  ancient  Greece  and  present-day 
journalists.  It  was  not  very  flattering  to  the  latter.  One 
of  the  points  of  comparison  was  that  "their  pretensions 
were  high  and  their  basis  of  knowledge  generally  slight." 
Now,  "ignorance,"  added  the  uncomplimentary  professor, 
"has  its  own  appropriate  manner,  and  most  journalists, 
being  very  clever  fellows,  are,  when  they  are  ignorant, 
conscious  of  their  ignorance.  A  fine,  elusive  manner  is 
therefore  adopted;  it  is  enveloped  in  a  haze."  To  this 
charge,  also,  a  bold  and  full  plea  of  not  guilty  cannot  be 
entered  by  a  newspaper  man.  If  his  own  conscience  would 
allow  it,  he  knows  that  too  many  of  his  own  calling  would 
rise  up  to  confute  him.  The  jokes,  flings,  stories,  confes- 
sions are  too  numerous  about  the  easy  and  empty  assump- 
tions of  omniscience  by  the  press.  Mr.  Barrie  has,  in  his 
reminiscential  When  a  Man's  Single,  told  too  many  tales 
out  of  the  sanctum.  Some  of  them  bear  on  the  point  in 
hand.  For  example : — 

* '  I  am  not  sure  that  I  know  what  the  journalistic  in- 
stinct precisely  is,'  Rob  said,  'and  still  less  whether  I  pos- 
sess it.' 

'Ah,  just  let  me  put  you  through  your  paces,'  replied 
Simms.  'Suppose  yourself  up  for  an  exam,  in  journalism, 
and  that  I  am  your  examiner.  Question  One:  The  house 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM  11 

was  soon  on  fire;  much  sympathy  is  expressed  with  the  suf- 
ferers.    Can  you  translate  that  into  newspaper  English?' 

"  'Let  me  see,*  answered  Rob,  entering  into  the  spirit 
of  the  examination.  'How  would  this  do:  In  a  moment 
the  edifice  was  enveloped  in  shooting  tongues  of  flame; 
the  appalling  catastrophe  has  plunged  the  whole  street  into 
the  gloom  of  night'? 

'  'Good.  Question  Two:  A  man  hangs  himself;  what 
is  the  technical  heading  for  this?' 

"  'Either  "Shocking  Occurrence"  or  "Rash  Act.'" 

"  'Question  Three:  Pabulum,  Cela  va  sans  dire,  Par  ex- 
cellence, Ne  plus  ultra.  What  are  these?  Are  there  any 
more  of  them?' 

'They  are  scholarships,'  replied  Rob;  'and  there  are 
two  more,  namely,  Tour  de  force  and  Terra  firma* 

"  'Question  Four:  A.  (a  soldier)  dies  at  6  P.M.  with  his 
back  to  the  foe;  B.  (a  philanthropist)  dies  at  1  A.M.;  which 
of  these,  speaking  technically,  would  you  call  a  creditable 
death?' 

"  'The  soldier's,  because  time  was  given  to  set  it.' 

"  'Quite  right.  Question  Five:  Have  you  ever  known 
a  newspaper  which  did  not  have  the  largest  circulation  and 
was  not  the  most  influential  advertising  medium?' 

"  'Never.' 

"  'Well,  Mr.  Angus,'  said  Simms,  tiring  of  the  examina- 
tion, 'you  have  passed  with  honors.' ' 

Many  cynical  admissions  by  the  initiate  could  be  quoted. 
The  question  was  recently  put  to  a  young  man  who  had  a 
place  on  the  staff  of  a  morning  newspaper:  "Are  you  not 
often  brought  to  a  standstill  for  lack  of  knowledge?" 
"No,"  he  replied,  "as  a  rule  I  go  gayly  ahead,  and  with- 
out a  pause.  My  only  difficulty  is  when  I  happen  to  know 
something  of  the  subject."  But  no  one  takes  these  sar- 
casms too  seriously.  They  are  a  part  of  the  Bohemian 


12  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM 

tradition  of  journalism.  But  Bohemianism  has  gone  out 
of  the  newspaper  world,  as  the  profession  has  become  more 
specialized,  more  of  a  serious  business.  Even  in  his  time, 
Jules  Janin,  writing  to  Madame  de  Girardin  apropos  of 
her  Ecole  des  Journalistes,  happily  exposed  the  "assump- 
tion that  good  leading  articles  ever  were  or  ever  could  be 
produced  over  punch  and  broiled  bones,  amidst  intoxica- 
tion and  revelry." 

Editors  may  still  be  ignorant,  but  at  any  rate  they  are 
not  unblushingly  devil-may-care  about  it.  They  do  not 
take  their  work  as  a  pure  lark.  They  try  to  get  their 
facts  right.  And  the  appreciation  of  accurate  knowledge, 
if  not  always  the  market  for  it,  is  certainly  higher  now 
in  newspaper  offices  than  it  used  to  be.  The  multiplied 
apparatus  of  information  has  done  at  least  that  for  the 
profession.  Much  of  its  knowledge  may  be  "index-learn- 
ing/' but  at  any  rate  it  gets  the  eel  by  the  tail.  And  the 
editor  has  a  fairish  retort  for  the  general  writer  in  the 
fact  that  the  latter  might  more  often  be  caught  tripping  if 
he  had  to  produce  his  wisdom  on  demand  and  get  it  irrevo- 
cably down  in  black  and  white  and  in  a  thousand  hands 
without  time  for  consideration  or  amendment.  This  truth 
was  frankly  put  by  Motley  in  a  letter  to  Holmes  in  1862: 
"I  take  great  pleasure  in  reading  your  prophecies,  and 
intend  to  be  just  as  free  in  hazarding  my  own.  ...  If 
you  make  mistakes,  you  shall  never  hear  of  them  again, 
and  I  promise  to  forget  them.  Let  me  ask  the  same  indul- 
gence from  you  in  return.  This  is  what  makes  letter- 
writing  a  comfort,  and  journalism  dangerous." 

It  is  a  distinction  which  an  editor  may  well  lay  to  his 
soul  when  accused  of  being  a  mere  Gigadibs  — 

You,  for  example,  clever  to  a  fault, 

The  rough  and  ready  man  who  write  apace, 

Read  somewhat  seldomer,  think,  perhaps,  even  less. 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM  13 

Even  in  journalism,  the  Spanish  proverb  holds  that 
knowing  something  does  not  take  up  any  room  —  el  saber 
no  ocupa  lugar.  Special  information  is,  as  I  often  have 
occasion  to  say  to  applicants  for  work,  the  one  thing  that 
gives  a  stranger  a  chance  in  a  newspaper  office.  The  most 
out-of-the-way  knowledge  has  a  trick  of  falling  pat  to  the 
day's  need.  A  successful  London  journalist  got  his  first 
foothold  by  knowing  all  about  Scottish  Disruption,  when 
that  struggle  between  the  Established  and  Free  churches 
burst  upon  the  horizon.  The  editor  simply  had  to  have 
the  services  of  a  man  who  could  tell  an  interested  English 
public  all  about  the  question  which  was  setting  the  heather 
afire.  Similarly,  not  long  since,  a  young  American  turned 
up  in  New  York  with  apparently  the  most  hopeless  outfit 
for  journalistic  work.  He  had  spent  eight  years  in  Italy 
studying  mediseval  church  history  —  and  that  was  his 
basis  for  thinking  he  could  write  for  a  daily  paper  of  the 
palpitating  present!  But  it  happened  just  then  that  the 
aged  Leo  XIII  drew  to  his  end,  and  here  was  a  man  who 
knew  all  the  Papabili  —  cardinals  and  archbishops;  who 
understood  thoroughly  the  ceremony  and  procedure  of 
electing  a  pope;  who  was  drenched  in  all  the  actualities  of 
the  situation,  and  who  could,  therefore,  write  about  it 
with  an  intelligence  and  sympathy  which  made  his  work 
compel  acceptance,  and  gave  him  entrance  into  journalism 
by  the  unlikely  Porta  Romana.  It  is  but  an  instance  of 
the  way  in  which  a  profession  growing  more  serious  is 
bound  to  take  knowledge  more  seriously. 


in 

It  is,  however,  what  Sir  Wemyss  Reid  called  the  "  Wego- 
tism"  of  the  press  that  some  fastidious  souls  find  more 
offensive  than  its  occasional  betrayals  of  crass  ignorance. 


14  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM 

Lecky  remarked  upon  it,  in  his  chapters  on  the  rise  of  news- 
papers in  England.  "Few  things  to  a  reflecting  mind  are 
more  curious  than  the  extraordinary  weight  which  is  at- 
tached to  the  anonymous  expression  of  political  opinion. 
Partly  by  the  illusion  of  the  imagination,  partly  by  the 
weight  of  emphatic  assertion,  a  plural  pronoun,  conspicu- 
ous type,  and  continual  repetition,  unknown  men  are  able, 
without  exciting  any  surprise  or  sense  of  incongruity,  to 
assume  the  language  of  the  accredited  representatives  of 
the  nation,  and  to  rebuke,  patronize,  or  insult  its  leading 
men  with  a  tone  of  authority  which  would  not  be  tolerated 
from  the  foremost  statesmen  of  their  time." 

A  remedy  frequently  suggested  is  signed  editorials.  Let 
the  Great  Unknown  come  out  from  behind  his  veil  of 
anonymity,  and  drop  his  "plural  of  majesty."  Then  we 
should  know  him  for  the  insignificant  and  negligible  indi- 
vidual he  is.  It  is  true  that  some  hesitating  attempts  of 
that  kind  have  been  made  in  this  country,  mostly  in  the 
baser  journalism,  but  they  have  not  succeeded.  There  is 
no  reason  to  think  that  this  practice  will  ever  take  root 
among  us.  It  arose  in  France  under  conditions  of  rigorous 
press  censorship,  and  really  goes  in  spirit  with  the  wish  of 
government  or  society  to  limit  that  perfect  freedom  of  dis- 
cussion which  anonymous  journalism  alone  can  enjoy. 
Legal  responsibility  is,  of  course,  fixed  in  the  editor  and 
proprietors.  Nor  is  the  literary  disguise,  as  a  rule,  of  such 
great  consequence,  or  so  difficult  to  penetrate.  Most  edi- 
tors would  feel  like  making  the  same  answer  to  an  aggrieved 
person  that  Swift  gave  to  one  of  his  victims.  In  one  of 
his  short  poems  he  threw  some  of  his  choicest  vitriol  upon 
one  Bettesworth,  a  lawyer  of  considerable  eminence,  who 
in  a  rage  went  to  Swift  and  demanded  whether  he  was  the 
author  of  that  poem.  The  Dean's  reply  was :  "  Mr.  Bettes- 
worth, I  was  in  my  youth  acquainted  with  great  lawyers 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM  15 

who,  knowing  my  disposition  to  satire,  advised  me  that, 
if  any  scoundrel  or  blockhead  whom  I  had  lampooned 
should  ask,  'Are  you  the  author  of  this  paper?'  I  should 
tell  him  that  I  was  not  the  author;  and  therefore  I  tell  you, 
Mr.  Bettesworth,  that  I  am  not  the  author  of  these  lines." 
But  the  real  defense  of  impersonal  journalism  lies  in  the 
conception  of  a  newspaper,  not  as  an  individual  organ,  but 
as  a  public  institution.  Walter  Bagehot,  in  his  Physics  and 
Politics,  uses  the  newspaper  as  a  good  illustration  of  an 
organism  subduing  everything  to  type.  Individual  style 
becomes  blended  in  the  common  style.  The  excellent  work 
of  assistant  editors  is  ascribed  to  their  chief,  just  as  his 
blunders  are  shouldered  off  upon  them.  It  becomes  impos- 
sible to  dissect  out  the  separate  personalities  which  contrib- 
ute to  the  making  up  of  the  whole.  The  paper  represents, 
not  one  man's  thought,  but  a  body  of  opinion.  Behind 
what  is  said  each  day  stands  a  long  tradition.  Writers, 
reviewers,  correspondents,  clientele,  add  their  mite,  but  it 
is  little  more  than  Burns's  snowflake  falling  into  the  river. 
The  great  stream  flows  on.  I  would  not  minimize  person- 
ality in  journalism.  It  has  counted  enormously;  it  still 
counts.  But  the  institutional,  representative  idea  is  now 
most  telling.  The  play  of  individuality  is  much  restricted; 
has  to  do  more  with  minor  things  than  great  policies.  John 
Stuart  Mill,  in  a  letter  of  1863  to  Motley,  very  well  hit  off 
what  may  be  called  the  chance  r6le  of  the  individual  in 
modern  journalism:  "The  line  it  [the  London  Times]  takes 
on  any  particular  question  is  much  more  a  matter  of  acci- 
dent than  is  supposed.  It  is  sometimes  better  than  the 
public,  and  sometimes  worse.  It  was  better  on  the  Com- 
petitive Examinations  and  on  the  Revised  Educational 
Code,  in  each  case  owing  to  the  accidental  position  of  a 
particular  man  who  happened  to  write  on  it  —  both  which 
men  I  could  name  to  you." 


16  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM 

Wendell  Phillips  told  of  once  taking  a  letter  to  the  editor 
of  a  Boston  paper,  whom  he  knew,  with  a  request  that  it 
be  published.  The  editor  read  it  over,  and  said,  "Mr. 
Phillips,  that  is  a  very  good  and  interesting  letter,  and  I 
shall  be  glad  to  publish  it;  but  I  wish  you  would  consent 
to  strike  out  the  last  paragraph." 

"Why,"  said  Phillips,  "that  paragraph  is  the  precise 
thing  for  which  I  wrote  the  whole  letter.  Without  that  it 
would  be  pointless." 

"Oh,  I  see  that,"  replied  the  editor;  "and  what  you  say 
in  it  is  perfectly  true,  —  the  very  children  in  the  streets 
know  that  it  is  true.  I  fully  agree  with  it  all  myself.  Yet 
it  is  one  of  those  things  which  it  will  not  do  to  say  publicly. 
However,  if  you  insist  upon  it,  I  will  publish  the  letter  as 
it  stands." 

It  was  published  the  next  morning,  and  along  with  it  a 
short  editorial  reference  to  it,  saying  that  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Phillips  would  be  found  in  another  column,  and  that  it 
was  extraordinary  that  so  keen  a  mind  as  his  should  have 
fallen  into  the  palpable  absurdity  contained  in  the  last 
paragraph. 

The  story  suggests  the  harmful  side  of  the  interaction 
between  press  and  public.  It  sometimes  puts  a  great  strain 
upon  the  intellectual  honesty  of  the  editor.  He  is  doubt- 
ful how  much  truth  his  public  will  bear.  His  audience  may 
seem  to  him,  on  occasions,  minatory,  as  well  as,  on  others, 
encouraging.  So  hard  is  it  for  the  journalist  to  be  sure, 
with  Dr.  Arnold,  that  the  times  will  always  bear  what  an 
honest  man  has  to  say.  At  this  point,  undoubtedly,  we 
come  upon  the  moral  perils  of  the  newspaper  man.  And 
when  outsiders  believe  that  he  writes  to  order,  or  without 
conviction,  they  naturally  hold  a  low  view  of  his  occupa- 
tion. 

Journalism,  wrote  Mrs.  Mark  Pattison  in  1879,  "harms 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM  17 

those,  even  the  most  gifted,  who  continue  in  it  after  early 
life.  They  cannot  honestly  write  the  kind  of  thing  required 
for  their  public  if  they  are  really  striving  to  reach  the  high- 
est level  of  thought  and  work  possible  to  themselves."  If 
this  were  always  and  absolutely  true,  little  could  be  said 
for  the  Fourth  Estate.  We  should  all  have  to  agree  with 
James  Smith,  of  Rejected  Addresses  fame :  — 

Hard  is  his  lot  who  edits,  thankless  job ! 
A  Sunday  journal  for  the  factious  mob. 
With  bitter  paragraph  and  caustic  jest, 
He  gives  to  turbulence  the  day  of  rest, 
Condemn'd  this  week  rash  rancor  to  instil, 
Or  thrown  aside,  the  next,  for  one  who  will. 
Alike  undone,  or  if  he  praise  or  rail 
(For  this  affects  his  safety,  that  his  sale), 
He  sinks,  alas,  in  luckless  limbo  set  — 
If  loud  for  libel,  and  if  dumb  for  debt. 

The  real  libel,  however,  would  be  the  assertion  that  the 
work  of  American  journalism  is  done  to  any  large  extent 
in  that  spirit  of  the  galley  slave.  With  all  its  faults,  it  is 
imbued  with  the  desire  of  being  of  public  service.  That  is 
often  overlaid  by  other  motives  —  money-making,  time- 
serving, place-hunting.  But  at  the  high  demand  of  a  great 
moral  or  political  crisis,  it  will  assert  itself,  and  editors  will 
be  found  as  ready  as  their  fellows  to  hazard  their  all  for 
the  common  weal.  To  show  what  sort  of  fire  may  burn  at 
the  heart  of  the  true  journalist,  I  append  a  letter  never 
before  published :  — 

"NEW  YORK,  April  23,  1867. 

"There  is  a  man  here  named  Barnard,  on  the  bench  of 
the  Supreme  Court.  Some  years  ago  he  kept  a  gambling 
saloon  in  San  Francisco,  and  was  a  notorious  blackleg  and 
vaurien.  He  came  then  to  New  York,  plunged  into  the 
basest  depths  of  city  politics,  and  emerged  Recorder. 


18  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM 

After  two  or  three  years  he  got  by  the  same  means  to  be 
a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court.  His  reputation  is  now  of 
the  very  worst.  He  is  unscrupulous,  audacious,  barefaced, 
and  corrupt  to  the  last  degree.  He  not  only  takes  bribes, 
but  he  does  not  even  wait  for  them  to  be  offered  him.  He 
sends  for  suitors,  or  rather  for  their  counsel,  and  asks  for 
the  money  as  the  price  of  his  judgments.  A  more  unprin- 
cipled scoundrel  does  not  breathe.  There  is  no  way  in 
which  he  does  not  prostitute  his  office,  and  in  saying  this 
I  am  giving  you  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  bar  and  the 
public.  His  appearance  on  the  bench  I  consider  literally 
an  awful  occurrence.  Yet  the  press  and  bar  are  muzzled, 
—  for  that  is  what  it  comes  to,  —  and  this  injurious  scoun- 
drel has  actually  got  possession  of  the  highest  court  in  the 
State,  and  dares  the  Christian  public  to  expose  his  villany. 
"If  I  were  satisfied  that,  if  the  public  knew  all  this,  it 
would  lie  down  under  it,  I  would  hand  the  Nation  over  to 
its  creditors  and  take  myself  and  my  children  out  of  the 
community.  I  will  not  believe  that  yet.  I  am  about  to 
say  all  I  dare  say  —  as  yet  —  in  the  Nation  to-morrow. 
Barnard  is  capable  of  ruining  us,  if  he  thought  it  worth 
his  while,  and  could  of  course  imprison  me  for  contempt, 
if  he  took  it  into  his  head,  and  I  should  have  no  redress. 
You  have  no  idea  what  a  labyrinth  of  wickedness  and 
chicane  surrounds  him.  Moreover,  I  have  no  desire  either 
for  notoriety  or  martyrdom,  and  am  in  various  ways  not 
well  fitted  to  take  a  stand  against  rascality  on  such  a  scale 
as  this.  But  this  I  do  think,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every 
honest  man  to  do  something.  Barnard  has  now  got  pos- 
session of  the  courts,  and  if  he  can  silence  the  press  also, 
where  is  reform  to  come  from?  ...  I  think  some  move- 
ment ought  to  be  set  on  foot  having  for  its  object  the  hunt- 
ing down  of  corrupt  politicians,  the  exposure  of  jobs,  the 
sharpening  of  the  public  conscience  on  the  whole  subject 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  JOURNALISM  19 

of  political  purity.  If  this  cannot  be  done,  the  growing 
wealth  will  kill  —  not  the  nation,  but  the  form  of  govern- 
ment without  which,  as  you  and  I  believe,  the  nation  would 
be  of  little  value  to  humanity." 

This  was  written  to  Professor  Charles  Eliot  Norton  by 
the  late  Edwin  Lawrence  Godkin.  The  Barnard  referred 
to  was,  of  course,  the  infamous  judge  from  whom,  a  few 
years  later,  the  judicial  robes  were  stripped.  Mr.  Godkin's 
attack  upon  him  was,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  first  that  was 
made  in  print.  But  the  passion  of  indignation  which 
glowed  in  that  great  journalist,  with  his  willingness  to 
hazard  his  own  fortunes  in  the  public  behalf,  only  sets 
forth  conspicuously  what  humbler  members  of  the  press 
feel  as  their  truest  motive  and  their  noblest  reward. 


PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS 

BY   OSWALD   GARRISON    VILLARD 

THE  passing  of  the  Boston  Journal,  in  the  eighty-fourth 
year  of  its  age,  by  merger  with  the  Boston  Herald  has 
rightly  been  characterized  as  a  tragedy  of  journalism.  Yet 
it  is  no  more  significant  than  the  similar  merger  of  the 
Cleveland  Plain  Dealer  and  the  Cleveland  Leader,  or  the 
New  York  Press  and  the  New  York  Sun.  All  are  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  drift  toward  consolidation  which  has  been  as 
marked  in  journalism  as  in  other  spheres  of  business  ac- 
tivity —  for  this  is  purely  a  business  matter.  True,  in  the 
cases  of  the  Sun  and  the  Press  Mr.  Munsey's  controlling 
motive  was  probably  the  desire  to  obtain  the  Associated 
Press  service  for  the  Sun,  which  he  could  have  secured  in 
no  other  way.  But  Mr.  Munsey  was  not  blind  to  the 
advantages  of  combining  the  circulation  of  the  Press  and 
the  Sun,  and  has  profited  by  it. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  there  will  be  further  consolida- 
tions in  New  York  and  Boston  before  long;  at  least  condi- 
tions are  ripe  for  them.  Chicago  has  now  only  four  morn- 
ing newspapers,  including  the  Staats-Zeitung,  but  one  of 
these  has  an  uncertain  future  before  it.  The  Herald  of  that 
city  is  the  net  result  of  amalgamations  which  successively 
wiped  out  the  Record,  the  Times,  the  Chronicle,  and  the 
Inter-Ocean.  It  is  only  a  few  years  ago  that  the  Boston 
Traveler  and  the  Evening  Herald  were  consolidated,  and 
Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  New  Orleans,  Portland  (Oregon), 
and  Philadelphia  are  other  cities  in  which  there  has  been 
a  reduction  in  the  number  of  dailies. 

In  the  main  it  is  correct  to  say  that  the  decreasing 


PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS  21 

number  of  newspapers  in  our  larger  American  cities  is  due 
to  the  enormously  increased  costs  of  maintaining  great 
dailies.  This  has  been  found  to  limit  the  number  which  a 
given  advertising  territory  will  support.  It  is  a  fact,  too, 
that  there  are  few  other  fields  of  enterprise  in  which  so 
many  unprofitable  enterprises  are  maintained.  There  is 
one  penny  daily  in  New  York  which  has  not  paid  a  cent 
to  its  owners  in  twenty  years;  during  that  time  its  income 
has  met  its  expenses  only  once.  Another  of  our  New  York 
dailies  loses  between  $400,000  and  $500,000  a  year,  if  well- 
founded  report  is  correct,  but  the  deficit  is  cheerfully  met 
each  year.  It  may  be  safely  stated  that  scarcely  half  of 
our  New  York  morning  and  evening  newspapers  return  an 
adequate  profit. 

The  most  striking  fact  about  the  recent  consolidations  is 
that  this  leaves  Cleveland  with  only  one  morning  news- 
paper, the  Plain  Dealer.  It  is  the  sixth  city  in  size  in  the 
United  States,  yet  it  has  not  appeared  to  be  large  enough 
to  support  both  the  Plain  Dealer  and  the  Leader,  not  even 
with  the  aid  of  what  is  called  "foreign,"  or  national,  adver- 
tising, that  is,  advertising  which  originates  outside  of 
Cleveland.  There  are  now  many  other  cities  in  which  the 
seeker  after  morning  news  is  compelled  to  take  it  from  one 
source  only,  whatever  his  political  affiliations  may  be:  in 
Indianapolis,  from  the  Star;  in  Detroit,  from  the  Free 
Press;  in  Toledo,  from  the  Times;  in  Columbus,  from  the 
State  Journal;  in  Scranton,  from  the  Republican;  in  St. 
Paul,  from  the  Pioneer  Press;  and  in  New  Orleans,  from  the 
Times-Picayune.  This  circumstance  comes  as  a  good  deal 
of  a  shock  to  those  who  fancy  that  at  least  the  chief  politi- 
cal parties  should  have  their  representative  dailies  in  each 
city  —  for  that  is  the  old  American  tradition. 

Turning  to  the  State  of  Michigan,  we  find  that  the  de- 
velopment has  gone  even  further,  for  here  are  some  sizable 


22  PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS 

cities  with  no  morning  newspaper  and  but  one  in  the  even- 
ing field.  In  fourteen  cities  whose  population  has  more 
than  doubled  during  the  last  twenty-five  years  the  number 
of  daily  newspapers  printed  in  the  English  language  has 
shrunk  from  42  to  only  23.  In  nine  of  these  fourteen  cities 
there  is  not  a  single  morning  newspaper;  they  have  but 
one  evening  newspaper  each  to  give  them  the  news  of  the 
world,  unless  they  are  content  to  receive  their  news  by 
mail  from  distant  cities.  On  Sunday  they  are  better  off, 
for  there  are  seven  Sunday  newspapers  in  these  towns.  In 
the  five  cities  having  more  than  one  newspaper,  there  are 
six  dailies  that  are  thought  to  be  unprofitable  to  their 
owners,  and  it  is  believed  that,  within  a  short  time,  the 
number  of  one-newspaper  cities  will  grow  to  twelve,  in 
which  case  Detroit  and  Grand  Rapids  will  be  the  only 
cities  with  morning  dailies.  It  is  reported  by  competent 
witnesses  that  the  one-newspaper  towns  are  not  only  well 
content  with  this  state  of  affairs,  but  that  they  actively 
resist  any  attempt  to  change  the  situation,  the  merchants 
in  some  cases  banding  together  voluntarily  to  maintain 
the  monopoly  by  refusing  advertising  to  those  wishing  to 
start  competition. 

It  is  of  course  true  that  in  the  larger  cities  of  the  East 
there  are  other  causes  than  the  lack  of  advertising  to  ac- 
count for  the  disappearance  of  certain  newspapers.  Many 
of  them  have  deserved  to  perish  because  they  were  ineffi- 
ciently managed  or  improperly  edited.  The  Boston  Tran- 
script declares  that  the  reason  for  the  Journal's  demise  was 
lack  "of  that  singleness  and  clearness  of  direction  and  pur- 
pose which  alone  establish  confidence  in  and  guarantee 
abiding  support  of  a  newspaper."  If  some  of  the  Hearst 
newspapers  may  be  cited  as  examples  of  successful  journals 
that  have  neither  clearness  nor  honesty  of  purpose,  it  is 
not  to  be  questioned  that  a  newspaper  with  clear-cut,  vig- 


PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS  23 

orous  personalities  behind  it  is  far  more  likely  to  survive 
than  one  that  does  not  have  them.  But  it  does  not  help 
the  situation  to  point  out,  as  does  the  Columbia  (S.  C.) 
State,  that  "sentiment  and  passion"  have  been  responsible 
for  the  launching  of  many  of  the  newspaper  wrecks;  for 
often  sentiment  and  the  righteous  passion  of  indignation 
have  been  responsible  for  the  foundation  of  notable  news- 
papers such  as  the  New  York  Tribune,  whose  financial 
success  was,  for  a  time  at  least,  quite  notable.  It  is  the 
danger  that  newspaper  conditions,  because  of  the  enor- 
mously increased  costs  and  this  tendency  to  monopoly, 
may  prevent  people  who  are  actuated  by  passion  and  senti- 
ment from  founding  newspapers,  which  is  causing  many 
students  of  the  situation  much  concern.  What  is  to  be 
the  hope  for  the  advocates  of  new-born  and  unpopular  re- 
forms if  they  cannot  have  a  press  of  their  own,  as  the  Abo- 
litionists and  the  founders  of  the  Republican  party  set  up 
theirs  in  a  remarkably  short  time,  usually  with  poverty- 
stricken  bank  accounts? 

If  no  good  American  can  read  of  cities  having  only  one 
newspaper  without  concern,  —  since  democracy  depends 
largely  upon  the  presenting  of  both  sides  of  every  issue,  — 
it  does  not  add  any  comfort  to  know  that  it  would  take 
millions  to  found  a  new  paper,  on  a  strictly  business  basis, 
in  our  largest  cities.  Only  extremely  wealthy  men  could 
undertake  such  a  venture,  —  precisely  as  the  rejuvenated 
Chicago  Herald  has  been  financed  by  a  group  of  the  city's 
wealthiest  magnates,  —  and  even  then  the  success  of  the 
undertaking  would  be  questionable  if  it  were  not  possible 
to  secure  the  Associated  Press  service  for  the  newcomer. 

The  "journal  of  protest,"  it  may  be  truthfully  said,  is 
to-day  being  confined,  outside  of  the  Socialistic  press,  to 
weeklies  of  varying  types,  of  which  the  Survey,  the  Public, 
and  the  St.  Louis  Mirror,  are  examples;  and  scores  of  them 


24  PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS 

fall  by  the  wayside.  The  large  sums  necessary  to  estab- 
lish a  journal  of  opinion  are  being  demonstrated  by  the 
New  Republic.  Gone  is  the  day  when  a  Liberator  can  be 
founded  with  a  couple  of  hundred  dollars  as  capital.  The 
struggle  of  the  New  York  Call  to  keep  alive,  and  that  of 
some  of  our  Jewish  newspapers,  are  clear  proof  that  condi- 
tions to-day  make  strongly  against  those  who  are  fired  by 
passion  and  sentiment  to  give  a  new  and  radical  message 
to  the  world. 

True,  there  is  still  opportunity  in  small  towns  for  edi- 
torial courage  and  ability;  William  Allen  White  has  dem- 
onstrated that.  But  in  the  small  towns  the  increased  costs 
due  to  the  war  are  being  felt  as  keenly  as  in  the  larger 
cities.  Ayer's  Newspaper  Directory  shows  a  steady  shrink- 
age during  the  last  three  years  in  the  weeklies,  semi- week- 
lies, tri-weeklies,  and  semi-monthlies,  there  being  300  less 
in  1916  than  in  1914.  There  lies  before  me  a  list  of  76 
dailies  and  weeklies  over  which  the  funeral  rites  have  been 
held  since  January  1,  1917;  to  some  of  them  the  govern- 
ment has  administered  the  coup  de  grace.  There  are  three 
Montreal  journals  among  them,  and  a  number  of  little 
German  publications,  together  with  the  notorious  Appeal 
to  Reason  and  a  couple  of  farm  journals:  21  states  are 
represented  in  the  list,  which  is  surely  not  complete. 

Many  dailies  have  sought  to  save  themselves  by  increas- 
ing their  price  to  two  cents,  as  in  Chicago,  Pittsburg, 
Buffalo,  and  Philadelphia;  and  everywhere  there  has  been 
a  raising  of  mail-subscription  and  advertising  rates,  in  an 
effort  to  offset  the  enormous  and  persistent  rise  in  the  cost 
of  paper  and  labor.  It  is  indisputable,  however,  that,  if 
we  are  in  for  a  long  war,  many  of  the  weaker  city  dailies 
and  the  country  dailies  must  go  to  the  wall,  just  as  there 
have  been  similar  failures  in  every  one  of  the  warring 
nations  of  Europe. 


PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS  25 

Surveying  the  newspaper  field  as  a  whole,  there  has  not 
been  of  late  years  a  marked  development  of  the  tendency 
to  group  together  a  number  of  newspapers  under  one 
ownership  in  the  manner  of  Northcliffe.  Mr.  Hearst, 
thanks  be  to  fortune,  has  not  added  to  his  string  lately; 
his  group  of  Examiners,  Journals,  and  Americans  is  popu- 
larly believed  not  to  be  making  any  large  sums  of  money 
for  him,  because  the  weaker  members  offset  the  earnings 
of  the  prosperous  ones,  and  there  is  reputed  to  be  great 
managerial  waste.1  When  Mr.  Munsey  buys  anotherdaily, 
he  usually  sells  an  unprosperous  one  or  adds  another  grave 
to  his  private  and  sizable  newspaper  cemetery.  The 
Scripps-McRae  Syndicate,  comprising  some  22  dailies, 
has  not  added  to  its  number  since  1911. 

In  Michigan  the  Booth  Brothers  control  six  clean,  inde- 
pendent papers,  which,  for  the  local  reasons  given  above, 
exercise  a  remarkable  influence.  The  situation  in  that 
state  shows  clearly  how  comparatively  easy  it  would  be 
for  rich  business  men,  with  selfish  or  partisan  purpose,  to 
dominate  public  opinion  there  and  poison  the  public  mind 
against  anything  they  disliked.  It  is  a  situation  to  cause 
much  uneasiness  when  one  looks  into  the  more  distant 
future  and  considers  the  distrust  of  the  press  because  of  a 
far-reaching  belief  that  the  large  city  newspaper,  being  a 
several-million-dollar  affair,  must  necessarily  have  mana- 
gers in  close  alliance  with  other  men  in  great  business  enter- 
prises, —  the  chamber  of  commerce,  the  merchants'  asso- 
ciation group,  —  and  therefore  wholly  detached  from  the 
aspirations  of  the  plain  people. 

Those  who  feel  thus  will  be  disturbed  by  another  remark- 
able consolidation  in  the  field  of  newspaper-making  —  the 
recent  absorption  of  a  large  portion  of  the  business  of  the 

1Mr.  Hearst  acquired  the  Boston  Advertiser  in  November  1917, 
shortly  after  this  article  was  written. — ED. 

4 


26  PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS 

American  Press  Association  by  the  Western  Newspaper 
Union.  The  latter  now  has  an  almost  absolute  monopoly 
in  supplying  "plate"  and  "ready  to  print"  matter  to  the 
small  daily  newspapers  and  the  country  weeklies  —  "  pat- 
ent insides"  is  a  more  familiar  term.  The  Western  News- 
paper Union  to-day  furnishes  plate  matter  to  nearly  four- 
teen thousand  newspapers  —  a  stupendous  number.  In 
1912  a  United  States  court  in  Chicago  forbade  this  very 
consolidation  as  one  in  restraint  of  trade;  to-day  it  permits 
it  because  the  great  rise  in  the  cost  of  plate  matter,  from 
four  to  seventeen  cents  a  pound,  seems  to  necessitate  the 
extinction  of  the  old  competition  and  the  establishment  of 
a  monopoly.  The  court  was  convinced  that  this  field  of 
newspaper  enterprise  will  no  longer  support  two  rival  con- 
cerns. An  immense  power  which  could  be  used  to  influence 
public  opinion  is  thus  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  officers  of 
a  money-making  concern,  for  news  matter  is  furnished  as 
well  as  news  photogravures. 

Only  the  other  day  I  heard  of  a  boast  that  a  laudatory 
article  praising  a  certain  astute  Democratic  politician  had 
appeared  in  no  less  than  7,000  publications  of  the  Union's 
clients.  Who  can  estimate  the  value  of  such  an  advertise- 
ment? Who  can  deny  the  power  enormously  to  influence 
rural  public  opinion  for  better  or  for  worse?  Who  can 
deny  that  the  very  innocent  aspect  of  such  a  publication 
makes  it  a  particularly  easy,  as  well  as  effective,  way  of 
conducting  propaganda  for  better  or  for  worse?  So  far  it 
has  been  to  the  advantage  of  both  the  associations  to  carry 
the  propaganda  matter  of  the  great  political  parties,  — • 
they  deny  any  intentional  propaganda  of  their  own,  —  but 
one  cannot  help  wondering  whether  this  will  always  be 
the  case,  and  whether  there  is  not  danger  that  some  day 
this  tremendous  power  may  be  used  in  the  interest  of  some 
privileged  undertaking  or  some  self-seeking  politicians.  At 


PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS  27 

least,  it  would  seem  as  if  our  law-makers,  already  so  critical 
of  the  press,  might  be  tempted  to  declare  the  Union  a  pub- 
lic-service corporation  and,  therefore,  bound  to  transmit 
all  legitimate  news  offered  to  it. 

In  the  strictly  news-gathering  field  there  is  probably  a 
decrease  of  competition  at  hand.  The  Allied  governments 
abroad  and  our  courts  at  home  have  struck  a  hard  blow  at 
the  Hearst  news-gathering  concern,  the  International  News 
Association,  which  has  been  excluded  from  England  and 
her  colonies,  Italy,  and  France,  and  has  recently  been 
convicted  of  news-stealing  and  falsification  on  the  com- 
plaint of  the  Associated  Press.  The  case  is  now  pending 
an  appeal  in  the  Supreme  Court,  when  the  decision  of 
the  lower  court  may  be  reversed.  If,  as  a  result  of  these 
proceedings,  the  association  eventually  goes  out  of  busi- 
ness, it  will  be  to  the  public  advantage,  that  is,  if  hon- 
est, uncolored  news  is  a  desideratum.  This  will  give  to 
the  Associated  Press  —  the  only  press  association  which  is 
altogether  cooperative  and  makes  no  profit  by  the  sale  of 
its  news  —  a  monopoly  in  the  morning  field.  If  this  lack 
of  organized  competition  —  it  is  daily  competing  with  the 
special  correspondents  of  all  the  great  newspapers  —  has 
its  drawbacks,  it  is  certainly  reassuring  that  throughout 
this  unprecedented  war  the  Associated  Press  has  brought 
over  an  enormous  volume  of  news  with  a  minimum  of 
just  complaints  as  to  the  fidelity  of  that  news  —  save 
that  it  is,  of  course,  rigidly  censored  in  every  country,  and 
particularly  in  passing  through  England.  It  has  met  vast 
problems  with  astounding  success. 

But  it  is  in  considerable  degree  dependent  upon  foreign 
news  agencies,  like  Reuters',  the  Havas  Agency  in  France, 
the  Wolf  Agency  in  Germany,  and  others,  including  the 
official  Russian  agency.  Where  these  are  not  frankly  offi- 
cial agencies,  they  are  the  creatures  of  their  governments 


28  PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS 

and  have  been  either  deliberately  used  by  them  to  mislead 
others,  and  particularly  foreign  nations,  or  to  conceal  the 
truth  from  their  own  subjects.  As  Dean  Walter  Williams, 
of  the  University  of  Missouri  School  of  Journalism,  has 
lately  pointed  out,  if  there  is  one  thing  needed  after  this 
war,  it  is  the  abolition  of  these  official  and  semi-official 
agencies  with  their  frequent  stirring  up  of  racial  and  inter- 
national hatreds.  A  free  press  after  the  war  is  as  badly 
needed  as  freedom  of  the  seas  and  freedom  from  conscience- 
less kaisers  and  autocrats. 

At  home,  when  the  war  is  over,  there  is  certain  to  be 
as  relatively  striking  a  slant  toward  social  reorganization, 
reform,  and  economic  revolution  as  had  taken  place  in 
Russia,  and  is  taking  place  in  England  as  related  by  the 
London  Times.  When  that  day  comes  here,  the  deep 
smouldering  distrust  of  our  press  will  make  itself  felt.  Our 
Fourth  Estate  is  to  have  its  day  of  overhauling  and  of 
being  muckraked.  The  perfectly  obvious  hostility  toward 
newspapers  of  the  present  Congress,  as  illustrated  by  its 
attempt  to  impose  a  direct  and  special  tax  upon  them;  its 
rigorous  censorship  in  spite  of  the  profession's  protest  of 
last  spring;  and  the  heavy  additional  postage  taxes  levied 
upon  some  classes  of  newspapers  and  the  magazines,  goes 
far  to  prove  this.  But  even  more  convincing  is  the  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  metropolitan  press  in  every  reform 
camp  and  among  the  plain  people.  It  has  grown  tremen- 
dously because  the  masses  are,  rightly  or  wrongly,  con- 
vinced that  the  newspapers  with  heavy  capital  invest- 
ments are  a  "capitalistic"  press  and,  therefore,  opposed 
to  their  interests. 

This  feeling  has  grown  all  the  more  because  so  many 
hundreds  of  thousands  who  were  opposed  to  our  going  to 
war  and  are  opposed  to  it  now  still  feel  that  their  views  — 
as  opposed  to  those  of  the  prosperous  and  intellectual 


PRESS  TENDENCIES  AND  DANGERS  29 

classes  —  were  not  voiced  in  the  press  last  winter.  They 
know  that  their  position  to-day  is  being  misrepresented  as 
disloyal  or  pro-German  by  the  bulk  of  the  newspapers.  In 
this  situation  many  are  turning  to  the  Socialistic  press  as 
their  one  refuge.  They,  and  multitudes  who  have  gradu- 
ally been  losing  faith  in  the  reliability  of  our  journalism, 
for  one  reason  or  another,  can  still  be  won  back  if  we 
journalists  will  but  slake  their  intense  thirst  for  reliable, 
trustworthy  news,  for  opinions  free  from  class  bias  and 
not  always  set  forth  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  well- 
to-do  and  the  privileged.  How  to  respond  to  this  need  is 
the  greatest  problem  before  the  American  press.  Mean- 
while, on  the  business  side  we  drift  toward  consolidation 
on  a  resistless  economic  current,  which  foams  past  num- 
berless rocks,  and  leads  no  man  knows  whither. 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

BY   FRANCIS   E.    LEUPP 


AFTER  the  last  ballot  had  been  cast  and  counted  "n  the 
recent  mayoralty  contest  in  New  York,  the  successful 
candidate  paid  his  respects  to  the  newspapers  which  had 
opposed  him.  This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  he  paid 
them  to  the  whole  metropolitan  press;  for  every  great  daily 
newspaper  except  one  had  done  its  best  to  defeat  him, 
and  that  one  had  given  him  only  a  left-handed  support.1 
The  comments  of  the  mayor-elect,  although  not  ill-tem- 
pered, led  up  to  the  conclusion  that  in  our  common-sense 
generation  nobody  cares  what  the  newspapers  say. 

Unflattering  as  such  a  verdict  may  be,  probably  a 
majority  of  the  community,  if  polled  as  a  jury,  would 
concur  in  it.  The  airy  dismissal  of  some  proposition  as 
"mere  newspaper  talk"  is  heard  at  every  social  gathering, 
till  one  who  was  brought  up  to  regard  the  press  as  a  mighty 
factor  in  modern  civilization  is  tempted  to  wonder  whether 
it  has  actually  lost  the  power  it  used  to  wield  among  us. 
The  answer  seems  to  me  to  depend  on  whether  we  are 
considering  direct  or  indirect  effects.  A  newspaper  exerts 
its  most  direct  influence  through  its  definite  interpretation 
of  current  events.  Its  indirect  influence  radiates  from 
the  amount  and  character  of  the  news  it  prints,  the  par- 
ticular features  it  accentuates,  and  its  method  of  present- 

1  The  conditions  here  referred  to  in  the  election  of  Mayor  Gaynor  in 
1909  were  almost  duplicated  in  1917,  when  Mayor  Mitchel  was  defeated 
for  reelection,  although  all  the  New  York  newspapers,  except  the  two 
Hearst  papers  and  the  Socialist  daily,  supported  him. — ED. 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS          31 

ing  these.  Hence  it  is  always  possible  that  its  direct 
influence  may  be  trifling,  while  its  indirect  influence  is 
large;  its  direct  influence  harmless,  but  its  indirect  influ- 
ence pernicious;  or  vice  versa. 

A  distinction  ought  to  be  made  here  like  that  which  we 
make  between  credulity  and  nerves.  The  fact  that  a 
dwelling  in  which  a  mysterious  murder  has  been  com- 
mitted may  for  years  thereafter  go  begging  in  vain  for 
a  tenant,  does  not  mean  that  a  whole  cityful  of  fairly  in- 
telligent people  are  victims  of  the  ghost  obsession;  but  it 
does  mean  that  no  person  enjoys  being  reminded  of  mid- 
night assassination  every  time  he  crosses  his  own  threshold; 
for  so  persistent  a  companionship  with  a  discomforting 
thought  is  bound  to  depress  the  best  nervous  system  ever 
planted  in  a  human  being.  So  the  constant  iteration  of 
any  idea  in  a  daily  newspaper  will  presently  capture  pub- 
lic attention,  whether  the  idea  be  good  or  bad,  sensible 
or  foolish.  Though  the  influence  of  the  press,  through  its 
ability  to  keep  certain  subjects  always  before  its  readers, 
has  grown  with  its  growth  in  resources  and  patronage,  its 
hold  on  popular  confidence  has  unquestionably  been 
loosened  during  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years.  To  Mayor 
Gaynor's  inference,  as  to  most  generalizations  of  that 
sort,  we  need  not  attach  serious  importance.  The  inter- 
play of  so  many  forces  in  a  political  campaign  makes  it 
impracticable  to  separate  the  influence  of  the  newspapers 
from  the  rest,  and  either  hold  it  solely  accountable  for  the 
result,  or  pass  it  over  as  negligible;  for  if  we  tried  to 
formulate  any  sweeping  rules,  we  should  find  it  hard  to 
explain  the  variegated  records  of  success  and  defeat  among 
newspaper  favorites.  But  it  may  be  worth  while  to 
inquire  why  an  institution  so  full  of  potentialities  as  a 
free  press  does  not  produce  more  effect  than  it  does,  and 


32          THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

why  so  many  of  its  leading  writers  to-day  find  reason  to 
deplore  the  altered  attitude  of  the  poeple  toward  it. 

Not  necessarily  in  their  order  of  importance,  but  for 
convenience  of  consideration,  I  should  list  the  causes  for 
this  change  about  as  follows:  the  transfer  of  both  prop- 
erties and  policies  from  personal  to  impersonal  control; 
the  rise  of  the  cheap  magazine;  the  tendency  to  special- 
ization in  all  forms  of  public  instruction;  the  fierceness  of 
competition  in  the  newspaper  business;  the  demand  for 
larger  capital,  unsettling  the  former  equipoise  between 
counting-room  and  editorial  room;  the  invasion  of  news- 
paper offices  by  the  universal  mania  of  hurry ;  the  develop- 
ment of  the  news-getting  at  the  expense  of  the  news- 
interpreting  function;  the  tendency  to  remould  narratives 
of  fact  so  as  to  confirm  office-made  policies;  the  growing 
disregard  of  decency  in  the  choice  of  news  to  be  specially 
exploited;  and  the  scant  time  now  spared  by  men  of  the 
world  for  reading  journals  of  general  intelligence. 

In  the  old-style  newspaper,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
editorial  articles  were  usually  anonymous,  the  editor's 
name  appeared  among  the  standing  notices  somewhere 
in  every  issue,  or  was  so  well  known  to  the  public  that  we 
talked  about  "what  Greeley  thought"  of  this  or  that,  or 
wondered  "whether  Bryant  was  going  to  support"  a 
certain  ticket,  or  shook  our  heads  over  the  latest  sensa- 
tional screed  in  "Bennett's  paper."  The  identity  of  such 
men  was  clear  in  the  minds  of  a  multitude  of  readers  who 
might  sometimes  have  been  puzzled  to  recall  the  title  of 
the  sheet  edited  by  each.  We  knew  their  private  histories 
and  their  idiosyncrasies;  they  were  to  us  no  mere  abstrac- 
tions on  the  one  hand,  or  wire-worked  puppets  on  the 
other,  but  living,  moving,  sentient  human  beings;  and  our 
acquaintance  with  them  enabled  us,  as  we  believed,  to 
locate  fairly  well  their  springs  of  thought  and  action. 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS          33 

Indeed,  their  very  foibles  sometimes  furnished  our  best 
exegetical  key  to  their  writings. 

When  a  politician  whom  Bryant  had  criticised  threat- 
ened to  pull  his  nose,  and  Bryant  responded  by  stalking 
ostentatiously  three  times  around  the  bully  at  their  next 
meeting  in  public,  the  readers  of  the  Evening  Post  did  not 
lose  faith  in  the  editor  because  he  was  only  human,  but 
guessed  about  how  far  to  discount  future  utterances  of 
the  paper  with  regard  to  his  antagonist.  When  Bennett 
avowed  his  intention  of  advertising  the  Herald  without 
the  expenditure  of  a  dollar,  by  attacking  his  enemies  so 
savagely  as  to  goad  them  into  a  physical  assault,  every- 
body understood  the  motives  behind  the  warfare  on  both 
sides,  and  attached  to  it  only  the  significance  that  the  facts 
warranted.  Knowing  Dana's  affiliations,  no  one  mistook 
the  meaning  of  the  Sun's  dismissal  of  General  Hancock  as 
"a  good  man,  weighing  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds, 
but  .  .  .  not  Samuel  J.  Tilden."  And  Greeley's  retort 
to  Bryant,  "You  lie,  villain!  willfully,  wickedly,  basely 
lie!"  and  his  denunciation  of  Bennett  as  a  "low-mouthed, 
blatant,  witless,  brutal  scoundrel,"  though  not  preserved  as 
models  of  amenity  for  the  emulation  of  budding  editors, 
were  felt  to  be  balanced  by  the  delicious  frankness  of  the 
Tribune's  announcement  of  "the  dissolution  of  the  political 
firm  of  Seward,  Weed  &  Greeley  by  the  withdrawal  of  the 
junior  partner." 

With  all  its  faults,  that  era  of  personal  journalism  had 
some  rugged  virtues.  In  referring  to  it,  I  am  reminded 
of  a  remark  made  to  me,  years  ago,  by  the  oldest  editor 
then  living, — so  old  that  he  had  employed  Weed  as  a 
journeyman,  and  refused  to  hire  Greeley  as  a  tramp 
printer, — that  "in  the  golden  age  of  our  craft,  every 
editor  wore  his  conscience  on  his  arm,  and  carried  his 
dueling  weapon  in  his  hand,  walked  always  in  the  light 


34          THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

where  the  whole  world  could  see  him,  and  was  prepared  to 
defend  his  published  opinions  with  his  life  if  need  be." 
Without  going  to  that  extreme,  it  is  easy  to  sympathize 
with  the  veteran's  view  that  a  man  of  force,  who  writes 
nothing  for  which  he  is  not  ready  to  be  personally  respon- 
sible, commands  more  respect  from  the  mass  of  his  fellows 
than  one  who  shields  himself  behind  a  rampart  of  anonym- 
ity, and  voices  only  the  sentiments  of  a  profit-seeking 
corporation. 

Of  course,  the  transfer  of  our  newspapers  from  personal 
to  corporate  ownership  and  control  was  not  a  matter  of 
preference,  but  a  practical  necessity.  The  expense  of 
modernizing  the  mechanical  equipment  alone  imposed  a 
burden  which  few  newspaper  proprietors  were  able  to 
carry  unaided.  Add  to  that  the  cost  of  an  ever-expanding 
news-service,  and  the  higher  salaries  demanded  by  satis- 
factory employees  in  all  departments,  and  it  is  hardly 
wonderful  that  one  private  owner  after  another  gave  up 
his  single-handed  struggle  against  hopeless  financial  odds, 
and  sought  aid  from  men  of  larger  means.  Partnership 
relations  involve  so  many  risks,  and  are  so  hard  to  shift 
in  an  emergency,  that  resort  was  had  to  the  form  of  a 
corporation,  which  afforded  the  advantage  of  a  limited 
liability,  and  enabled  a  shareholder  to  dispose  of  his 
interest  if  he  tired  of  the  game.  Since  the  dependence  of 
a  newspaper  on  the  favor  of  an  often  whimsical  public 
placed  it  among  the  least  attractive  forms  of  investment, 
even  under  these  well-guarded  conditions,  the  capitalists 
who  were  willing  to  take  large  blocks  of  stock  were  usually 
men  with  political  or  speculative  ends  to  gain,  to  which 
they  could  make  a  newspaper  minister  by  way  of  compen- 
sating them  for  the  hazards  they  faced. 

These  newcomers  were  not  idealists,  like  the  founders 
and  managers  of  most  of  the  important  journals  of  an 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS          35 

earlier  period.  They  were  men  of  keen  commercial  in- 
stincts, evidenced  by  the  fact  that  they  had  accumulated 
wealth.  They  naturally  looked  at  everything  through 
the  medium  of  the  balance-sheet.  Here  was  a  paper  with 
a  fine  reputation,  but  uncertain  or  disappearing  profits;  it 
must  be  strengthened,  enlarged,  and  made  to  pay.  Prin- 
ciples? Yes,  principles  were  good  things,  but  we  must 
not  ride  even  good  things  to  death.  The  noblest  cause 
in  creation  cannot  be  promoted  by  a  defunct  newspaper, 
and  to  keep  its  champion  alive  there  must  be  a  net  cash 
income.  The  circulation  must  be  pushed,  and  the  adver- 
tising patronage  increased  More  circulation  can  be  se- 
cured only  by  keeping  the  public  stirred  up.  Employ 
private  detectives  to  pursue  the  runaway  husband,  and 
bring  him  back  to  his  wife;  organize  a  marine  expedition 
to  find  the  missing  ship;  send  a  reporter  into  the  Soudan 
to  interview  the  beleaguered  general  whose  own  govern- 
ment is  powerless  to  reach  him  with  an  army.  Blow  the 
trumpet,  and  make  ringing  announcements  every  day.  If 
nothing  new  is  to  be  had,  refurbish  something  so  old  that 
people  have  forgotten  it,  and  spread  it  over  lots  of  space. 
Who  will  know  the  difference? 

What  one  newspaper  did,  that  others  were  forced  to  do 
or  be  distanced  in  the  competition.  It  all  had  its  effect. 
A  craving  for  excitement  was  first  aroused  in  the  public, 
and  then  satisfied  by  the  same  hand  that  had  aroused  it. 
Nobody  wished  to  be  behind  the  times,  so  circulations 
were  swelled  gradually  to  tenfold  their  old  dimensions. 
Rivalry  was  worked  up  among  the  advertisers  in  their 
turn,  till  a  half-page  in  a  big  newspaper  commanded  a 
price  undreamed  of  a  few  years  before.  Thus  one  interest 
was  made  to  foster  another,  each  increase  of  income  in- 
volving also  an  increase  of  cost,  and  each  additional  out- 
lay bringing  fresh  returns.  In  such  a  race  for  business 


36          THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

success,  with  such  forces  behind  the  runners,  can  we  marvel 
at  the  subsidence  of  ideals  which  in  the  days  of  individual 
control  and  slower  gait  were  uppermost?  With  the  cap- 
italists' plans  to  promote,  and  powerful  advertisers  to 
conciliate  by  emphasizing  this  subject  or  discreetly  ignor- 
ing that,  is  not  the  wonder  rather  that  the  moral  quality  of 
our  press  has  not  fallen  below  its  present  standard? 

Even  in  our  day  we  occasionally  find  an  editor  who  pays 
his  individual  tribute  to  the  old  conception  of  personal 
responsibility  by  giving  his  surname  to  his  periodical  or 
signing  his  leading  articles  himself.  In  such  newspaper 
ventures  as  Mr.  Bryan  and  Mr.  La  Follette  have  launched 
within  a  few  years,  albeit  their  motives  are  known  to  be 
political  and  partisan,  more  attention  is  attracted  by  one 
of  their  deliverances  than  by  a  score  of  impersonal  preach- 
ments. Mr.  Hearst,  the  high  priest  of  sensational  jour- 
nalism, though  not  exploiting  his  own  authority  in  the 
same  way,  has  always  taken  pains  to  advertise  the  indi- 
vidual work  of  such  lieutenants  as  Bierce  and  Brisbane; 
and  he,  like  Colonel  Taylor  of  Boston,  early  opened  his 
editorial  pages  to  contributions  from  distinguished  authors 
outside  of  his  staff,  with  their  signatures  attached.  A  few 
editors  I  have  known  who,  in  whatever  they  wrote  with 
their  own  hands,  dropped  the  diffusive  "we"  and  adopted 
the  more  direct  and  intimate  "I."  These  things  go  to 
show  that  even  journalists  who  have  received  most  of 
their  training  in  the  modern  school  appreciate  that  trait 
in  our  common  human  nature  which  prompts  us  to  pay 
more  heed  to  a  living  voice  than  to  a  talking-machine. 


ii 

The  importance  of  a  responsible  personality  finds  further 
confirmation  in  the  evolution  of  the  modern  magazine. 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS          37 

From  being  what  its  title  indicates,  a  place  of  storage  for 
articles  believed  to  have  some  permanent  value,  the  mag- 
azine began  to  take  on  a  new  character  about  twenty  years 
ago.  While  preserving  its  distinct  identity  and  its  orig- 
inality, it  leaped  boldly  into  the  newspaper  arena,  and 
sought  its  topics  in  the  happenings  of  the  day,  regardless 
of  their  evanescence.  It  raised  a  corps  of  men  and  women 
who  might  otherwise  have  toiled  in  obscurity  all  their 
lives,  and  gave  them  a  chance  to  become  authorities  on 
questions  of  immediate  interest,  till  they  are  now  recog- 
nized as  constituting  a  limited  but  highly  specialized  pro- 
fession. One  group  occupied  itself  with  trusts  and  trust 
magnates;  another  with  politicians  whose  rise  had  been  so 
meteoric  as  to  suggest  a  romance  behind  it;  another  with 
the  inside  history  of  international  episodes;  another  with 
new  religious  movements  and  their  leaders,  and  so  on. 

What  was  the  result?  The  public  following  which  the 
newspaper  editors  used  to  command  when  they  did  busi- 
ness in  the  open,  but  which  was  falling  away  from  their 
anonymous  successors,  attached  itself  promptly  to  the 
magazinists.  The  citizen  interested  in  insurance  reform 
turned  eagerly  to  all  that  emanated  from  the  group  in 
charge  of  that  topic;  whoever  aspired  to  take  part  in  the 
social  uplift  bought  every  number  of  every  periodical  in 
which  the  contributions  of  another  group  appeared;  the 
hater  of  monopoly  paid  a  third  group  the  same  compli- 
ment. What  was  more,  the  readers  pinned  their  faith  to 
their  favorite  writers,  and  quoted  Mr.  Steffens  and  Miss 
Tarbell  and  Mr.  Baker  on  the  specialty  each  had  taken, 
with  much  the  same  freedom  with  which  they  might  have 
quoted  Darwin  on  plant-life,  or  Edison  on  electricity. 
If  any  anonymous  editor  ventured  to  question  the  infalli- 
bility of  one  of  these  prophets  of  the  magazine  world,  the 
common  multitude  wasted  no  thought  on  the  merits  cf 


38          THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

the  issue,  but  sided  at  once  with  the  teacher  whom  they 
knew  at  least  by  name,  against  the  critic  whom  they  knew 
not  at  all.  The  uncomplimentary  assumption  as  to  the 
latter  always  seemed  to  be  that,  as  only  a  subordinate 
part  of  a  big  organism,  he  was  speaking,  not  from  his  heart, 
but  from  his  orders;  and  that  he  must  have  some  sinister 
design  in  trying  to  discredit  an  opponent  who  was  not 
afraid  to  stand  out  and  face  his  fire. 

Apropos,  let  us  not  fail  to  note  the  constant  trend,  of 
recent  years,  toward  specialization  in  every  department  of 
life  and  thought.  There  was  a  time  when  a  pronounce- 
ment from  certain  men  on  nearly  any  theme  would  be 
accepted  by  the  public,  not  only  with  the  outward  respect 
commanded  by  persons  of  their  social  standing,  but  with 
a  large  measure  of  positive  credence.  One  who  enjoyed 
a  general  reputation  for  scholarship  might  set  forth  his 
views  this  week  on  a  question  of  archaeology,  next  week  on 
the  significance  of  the  latest  earthquake,  and  a  week  later 
on  the  new  canals  on  the  planet  Mars,  with  the  certainty 
that  each  outgiving  would  affect  public  opinion  to  a 
marked  degree;  whereas  nowadays  we  demand  that  the 
most  distinguished  members  of  our  learned  faculty  stick 
each  to  his  own  hobby;  the  antiquarian  to  the  excavations, 
the  seismologist  to  the  tremors  of  our  planet,  the  astrono- 
mer to  our  remoter  colleagues  of  the  solar  system.  It  is 
the  same  with  our  writers  on  political,  social,  and  economic 
problems.  Whereas  the  old-time  editor  was  expected  to 
tell  his  constituency  what  to  think  on  any  subject  called 
up  by  the  news  overnight,  it  is  now  taken  for  granted  that 
even  news  must  be  classified  and  distributed  between 
specialists  for  comment;  and  the  very  sense  that  only  one 
writer  is  trusted  to  handle  any  particular  class  of  topics 
inspires  a  desire  in  the  public  to  know  who  that  writer  is 
before  paying  much  attention  to  his  opinions. 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

The  intense  competition  between  newspapers  covering 
the  same  field  sometimes  leads  to  consequences  which  do 
not  strengthen  the  esteem  of  the  people  at  large  for  the 
press  at  large.     Witness  the  controversy  which  arose  over  Hjt$ 
the  conflicting  claims  of  Commander  Peary  and  Dr.  Cook 
as  the  original  discoverer  of  the  North  Pole.     One  news-  ^4^v 
paper  syndicate  having,   at  large  expense,  procured   a 
narrative  directly  from  the  pen  of  Cook,  and  another 
accomplished  a  like  feat  with  Peary,  to  which  could  "we, 
the  people,"  look  for  an  unbiased  opinion  on  the  matters 
in  dispute?    An  admission  by  either  that  its  star  con- 
tributor could  trifle  with  the  truth  was  equivalent  to 
throwing  its  own  exploit  into  bankruptcy.     So  each  was 
bound  to  stand  by  the  claimant  with  whom  it  had  first 
identified  itself,  and  fight  the  battle  out  like  an  attorney 
under  retainer;  and  what  started  as  a  serious  contest  o 
priority  in  a  scientific  discovery  threatened  to  end  as 
wrangle  over  a  newspaper  "beat." 

Then,  too,  we  must  reckon  with  the  progressive  accelera- 
tion of  the  pace  of  our  twentieth-century  life  generally. 
Where  we  walked  in  the  old  times,  we  run  in  these;  where 
we  ambled  then,  we  gallop  now.  It  is  the  age  of  electric 
power,  high  explosives,  articulated  steel  frames,  in  the 
larger  world;  of  the  long-distance  telephone,  the  taxicab, 
and  the  card-index,  in  the  narrower.  The  problem  of 
existence  is  reduced  to  terms  of  time-measurement,  with 
the  detached  lever  substituted  for  the  pendulum  because 
it  produces  a  faster  tick. 

What  is  the  effect  of  all  this  on  the  modernized  news- 
paper? It  must  be  first  on  the  ground  at  every  activity, 
foreseen  or  unforeseeable,  as  a  matter  of  course.  Its 
reporter  must  get  off  his  "story"  in  advance  of  all  his 
rivals.  Never  mind  strict  accuracy  of  detail  —  effect  is 
the  main  thing;  he  is  writing,  not  for  expert  accountants, 


40          THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

or  professional  statisticians,  or  analytic  philosophers,  but 
for  the  public;  and  what  the  public  wants  is,  not  dry  parti- 
culars, but  color,  vitality,  heat.  Pictures  being  a  quicker 
medium  of  communication  with  the  reader's  mind  than 
printed  text,  nine-tenths  of  our  daily  press  is  illustrated, 
and  the  illustrations  of  distant  events  are  usually  turned 
out  by  artists  in  the  home  office  from  verbal  descriptions. 
What  signifies  it  if  only  three  cars  went  off  the  broken 
bridge,  and  the  imaginative  draftsman  put  five  into  his 
picture  because  he  could  not  wait  for  the  dispatch  of  cor- 
rection which  almost  always  follows  the  lurid  "scoop"? 
Who  is  harmed  if  the  telegram  about  the  suicide  reads 
"shots"  instead  of  "stabs,"  and  the  artist  depicts  the  self- 
destroyer  clutching  a  smoking  pistol  instead  of  a  dripping 
dirk? 

It  is  the  province  of  the  champion  of  the  up-to-date 
cult  to  minimize  the  importance  of  detail.  The  purpose 
of  the  picture,  he  argues,  is  to  stamp  a  broad  impression 
instantaneously  on  the  mind,  and  thus  spare  it  the  more 
tedious  process  of  reading.  And  if  one  detail  too  many  is 
put  in,  or  one  omitted  which  ought  to  have  been  there, 
whoever  is  sufficiently  interested  to  read  the  text  will 
discover  the  fault,  and  whoever  is  not  will  give  it  no  further 
thought  anyway.  As  to  the  descriptive  matter,  suppose 
it  does  contain  errors?  The  busy  man  of  our  day  does  not 
read  his  newspaper  with  the  same  solemn  intent  with 
which  he  reads  history.  What  he  asks  of  it  is  a  lightning- 
like  glimpse  of  the  world  which  will  show  him  how  far  it 
has  moved  in  the  last  twelve  hours;  and  he  will  not  pause 
to  complain  of  a  few  deviations  from  the  straight  line  of 
truth,  especially  if  it  would  have  taken  more  than  the 
twelve  hours  to  rectify  them. 

This  would  perhaps  be  good  logic  if  the  pure-food  law 
were  broadened  in  scope  so  as  to  apply  to  mental  pabulum, 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS          41 

and  every  concocter  of  newspaper  stories  and  illustrations 
were  compelled  to  label  his  adulterated  products.  Then 
the  consumer  who  does  not  object  to  a  diet  of  mixed  fact 
and  falsehood,  accuracy  and  carelessness,  so  long  as  the 
compound  is  so  seasoned  as  to  tickle  his  palate,  could  have 
his  desire,  while  his  neighbor  who  wishes  an  honest  article 
or  nothing  at  all  could  have  his  also.  As  it  is,  with  no 
distinguishing  marks,  we  are  liable  to  buy  one  thing  and 
get  another. 

The  new  order  of  "speed  before  everything"  has  brought 
about  its  changes  at  both  ends  of  a  newspaper  staff.  The 
editorial  writer  who  used  to  take  a  little  time  to  look  into 
the  ramifications  of  a  topic  before  reducing  his  opinions 
to  writing,  feels  humiliated  if  an  event  occurs  on  which  he 
cannot  turn  off  a  few  comments  at  sight;  but  he  has  still 
a  refuge  in  such  modifying  clauses  as  "in  the  light  of  the 
meagre  details  now  before  us,"  or  "as  it  appears  at  this 
writing,"  or  "in  spite  of  the  absence  of  full  particulars, 
which  may  later  change  the  whole  aspect  of  affairs." 

No  such  covert  offers  itself  to  the  news-getter  in  the 
open  field.  What  he  says  must  be  definite,  outright,  un- 
qualified, or  the  blue  pencil  slashes  remorselessly  through 
his  "it  is  suspected,"  or  "according  to  a  rumor  which  can- 
not be  traced  to  its  original  source."  What  business  has 
he  to  "suspect"?  He  is  hired  to  know.  For  what,  pray, 
is  the  newspaper  paying  him,  if  not  for  tracing  rumors  to 
their  original  source;  and  further  still,  if  so  instructed? 
He  is  there  to  be,  not  a  thinker,  but  a  worker;  a  human 
machine  like  a  steam  potato-digger,  which,  supplied  with 
the  necessary  energizing  force  from  behind,  drives  its 
prods  under  nature's  mantle,  and  grubs  out  the  succulent 
treasures  she  is  trying  to  conceal. 


42          THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 


in 

Nowhere  is  the  change  more  patent  than  in  the  depart- 
ment of  special  correspondence.  At  an  important  point 
like  Washington,  for  instance,  the  old  corps  of  writers 
were  men  of  mature  years,  most  of  whom  had  passed  an 
apprenticeship  in  the  editorial  chair,  and  still  held  a 
semi-editorial  relation  to  the  newspapers  they  represented. 
They  had  studied  political  history  and  economics,  social 
philosophy,  and  kindred  subjects,  as  a  preparation  for  their 
life-work,  and  were  full  of  a  wholesome  sense  of  responsi- 
bility to  the  public  as  well  as  to  their  employers.  Poore, 
Nelson,  Boynton,  and  others  of  their  class,  were  known 
by  name,  and  regarded  as  authorities,  in  the  communities 
to  which  they  daily  ministered.  They  were  thoughtful 
workers  as  well  as  enterprising.  They  went  for  their 
news  to  the  fountain-head,  instead  of  dipping  it  out  of  any 
chance  pool  by  the  wayside.  When  they  sent  in  to  their 
home  offices  either  fact  or  prophecy,  they  accompanied 
it  with  an  interpretation  which  both  editors  and  public 
knew  to  be  no  mere  feat  in  lightning  guesswork;  and  the 
fame  which  any  of  them  prized  more  than  a  long  calendar 
of  "beats"  and  "exclusives"  was  that  which  would  occa- 
sionally move  a  worsted  competitor  to  confess,  "I  missed 
that  news;  but  if  -  —  sent  it  out,  it  is  true." 

When,  in  the  later  eighties,  the  new  order  came,  it  came 
with  a  rush.  The  first  inkling  of  it  was  a  notice  received, 
in  the  middle  of  one  busy  night,  by  a  correspondent  who 
had  been  faithfully  serving  a  prominent  Western  news- 
paper for  a  dozen  years,  to  turn  over  his  bureau  to  a  young 
man  who  up  to  that  time  had  been  doing  local  reporting 
on  its  home  staff.  Transfers  of  other  bureaus  followed 
fast.  A  few  were  left,  and  still  remain,  undisturbed  in 
personnel  or  character  of  work.  Here  and  there,  too,  an 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS          43 

old-fashioned  correspondent  was  retained,  but  retired  to 
an  emeritus  post,  with  the  privilege  of  writing  a  signed 
letter  when  the  spirit  moved  him;  while  a  nimbler-footed 
successor  assumed  titular  command  and  sent  the  daily 
dispatches.  The  bald  fact  was  that  the  newspaper  man- 
agers had  bowed  to  the  hustling  humor  of  the  age.  They 
no  longer  cared  to  serve  journalistic  viands,  which  re- 
quired deliberate  mastication,  to  patrons  who  clamored 
for  a  quick  lunch.  So  they  passed  on  to  their  representa- 
tives at  a  distance  the  same  injunction  they  were  inces- 
santly pressing  upon  their  reporters  at  home:  "Get  the 
news,  and  send  it  while  it  is  hot.  Don't  wait  to  tell  us 
what  it  means  or  what  it  points  to;  we  can  do  our  own 
ratiocinating." 

Is  the  public  a  loser  by  this  obscuration  of  the  corre- 
spondent's former  function?  I  believe  so.  His  appeal  is 
no  longer  put  to  the  reader  directly :  he  becomes  the  mere 
tool  of  the  newspaper,  which  in  its  turn  furnishes  to  the 
reader  such  parts  of  his  and  other  communications  as  it 
chooses,  and  in  such  forms  as  best  suit  its  ulterior  purposes. 
Do  btless  this  conduces  to  a  more  perfect  administrative 
coordination  in  the  staff  at  large,  but  it  greatly  weakens 
the  correspondent's  sense  of  personal  responsibility.  Poore 
had  his  constituency,  Boynton  had  his,  Nelson  had  his. 
None  of  these  men  would,  under  any  conceivable  stress 
of  competition,  have  wittingly  misled  the  group  of  readers 
he  had  attached  to  himself;  nor  would  one  of  them  have 
tolerated  any  tampering  in  the  home  office  with  essential 
matters  in  a  contribution  to  which  he  had  signed  his  name. 
Indeed,  so  well  was  this  understood  that  I  never  heard  of 
anybody's  trying  to  tamper  with  them.  It  occasionally 
happened  that  the  correspondent  set  forth  a  view  some- 
what at  variance  with  that  expressed  on  the  editorial 
page  of  the  same  paper;  but  each  party  to  this  disagree- 


44          THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

ment  respected  the  other,  and  the  public  was  assumed  to 
be  capable  of  making  its  own  choice  between  opposing 
opinions  clearly  stated.  A  special  virtue  of  the  plan  of 
independent  correspondence  lay  in  the  opportunity  it 
often  afforded  the  habitual  reader  of  a  single  newspaper 
to  get  at  least  a  glance  at  more  than  one  side  of  a  public 
question. 

Among  the  conspicuous  fruits  of  the  new  regime  is  the 
direction  sometimes  sent  to  a  correspondent  to  "write 
down"  this  man  or  "write  up*'  that  project.  He  knows 
that  it  is  a  case  of  obey  orders  or  resign,  and  it  brings  to 
the  surface  all  the  Hessian  he  may  have  in  his  blood.  If 
he  is  enough  of  a  casuist,  he  will  try  to  reconcile  good  con- 
science with  worldly  wisdom  by  picturing  himself  as  a 
soldier  commanded  to  do  something  of  which  he  does  not 
approve.  Disobedience  at  the  post  of  duty  is  treachery; 
resignation  in  the  face  of  an  unwelcome  billet  is  desertion. 
So  he  does  what  he  is  bidden,  though  it  may  be  at  the  cost 
of  his  self-respect  and  the  esteem  of  others  whose  kind 
opinion  he  values.  I  have  had  a  young  correspondent 
come  to  me  for  information  about  something  under  advise- 
ment at  the  White  House,  and  apologize  for  not  going 
there  himself  by  showing  me  a  note  from  his  editor  telling 
him  to  "give  the  President  hell."  As  he  had  always  been 
treated  with  courtesy  at  the  White  House,  he  had  not  the 
hardihood  to  go  there  while  engaged  in  his  campaign  of 
abuse. 

Another,  who  had  been  intimate  with  a  member  of  the 
administration  then  in  power,  was  suddenly  summoned 
one  day  to  a  conference  with  the  publisher  of  his  paper. 
He  went  in  high  spirits,  believing  that  the  invitation  must 
mean  at  least  a  promotion  in  rank  or  an  increase  of  salary. 
He  returned  crestfallen.  Several  days  afterward  he  re- 
vealed to  me  in  confidence  that  the  paper  had  been  un- 


THE  WANING  PX)WER  OF  THE  PRESS          45 

successfully  seeking  some  advertising  controlled  by  his 
friend,  and  that  the  publisher  had  offered  him  one  thou- 
sand dollars  for  a  series  of  articles  —  anonymous,  if  he 
preferred  —  exposing  the  private  weaknesses  of  the  emi- 
nent man,  and  giving  full  names,  dates,  and  other  particu- 
lars as  to  a  certain  unsavory  association  in  which  he  was 
reported  to  find  pleasure!  Still  another  brought  me  a 
dispatch  he  had  prepared,  requesting  me  to  look  it  over 
and  see  whether  it  contained  anything  strictly  libelous. 
It  proved  to  be  a  forecast  of  the  course  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  in  a  financial  crisis  then  impending.  "Tech- 
nically speaking,"  I  said,  after  reading  it,  "there  is  plenty 
of  libelous  material  in  this,  for  it  represents  the  Secretary 
as  about  to  do  something  which,  to  my  personal  knowledge, 
he  has  never  contemplated,  and  which  would  stamp  him 
as  unfit  for  his  position  if  he  should  attempt  it.  But  as  a 
matter  of  fact  he  will  ignore  your  story,  as  he  is  putting 
into  type  to-day  a  circular  which  is  to  be  made  public 
to-morrow,  telling  what  his  plan  really  is,  and  that  will 
authoritatively  discredit  you." 

"Thank  you,"  he  answered,  rather  stiffly.  "I  have  my 
orders  to  pitch  into  the  Secretary  whenever  I  get  a  chance. 
I  shall  send  this  to-day,  and  to-morrow  I  can  send  another 
saying  that  my  exclusive  disclosures  forced  him  to  change 
his  programme  at  the  last  moment." 

These  are  sporadic  cases,  I  admit,  yet  they  indicate 
a  mischievous  tendency;  just  as  each  railway  accident  is 
itself  sporadic,  but  too  frequent  fatalities  from  a  like 
cause  on  the  same  line  point  to  something  wrong  in  the 
management  of  the  road.  It  is  not  necessary  to  call 
names  on  the  one  hand,  or  indulge  in  wholesale  denuncia- 
tion on  the  other,  in  order  to  indicate  the  extremes  to 
which  the  current  pace  in  journalism  must  inevitably 
lead  if  kept  up.  The  broadest-minded  and  most  honor- 


46          THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

able  men  in  our  calling  realize  the  disagreeable  truth.  A 
few  of  the  great  newspapers,  too,  have  the  courage  to 
cling  still  to  the  old  ideals,  both  in  their  editorial  attitude 
and  in  their  instructions  to  their  news-gatherers.  Possi- 
bly their  profits  are  smaller  for  their  squeamishness;  but 
that  the  better  quality  of  their  patronage  makes  up  in  a 
measure  for  its  lesser  quantity,  is  evident  to  any  one 
familiar  with  the  advertising  business.  Moreover,  in  the 
character  of  its  employees  and  in  the  zeal  and  intelligence 
of  their  service,  a  newspaper  conducted  on  the  higher 
plane  possesses  an  asset  which  cannot  be  appraised  in 
dollars  and  cents.  Of  one  such  paper  a  famous  man  once 
said  to  me,  "I  disagree  with  half  its  political  views;  I  am 
regarded  as  a  personal  enemy  by  its  editor;  but  I  read  it 
religiously  every  day,  and  it  is  the  only  daily  that  enters 
the  front  door  of  my  home.  It  is  a  paper  written  by 
gentlemen  for  gentlemen;  and,  though  it  exasperates  me 
often,  it  never  offends  my  nostrils  with  the  odors  of  the 
slums." 

This  last  remark  leads  to  another  consideration  touching 
the  relaxed  hold  of  the  press  on  public  confidence:  I  refer 
to  the  topics  treated  in  the  news  columns,  and  the  manner 
of  their  presentation.  Its  importance  is  attested  by  the 
sub-titles  or  mottoes  adopted  by  several  prominent  news- 
papers, emphasizing  their  appeal  to  the  family  as  a  special 
constituency.  In  spite  of  the  intense  individualism,  the 
reciprocal  independence  of  the  sexes,  and  the  freedom  from 
the  trammels  of  feudal  tradition  of  which  we  Americans 
boast,  the  social  unit  in  this  country  is  the  family.  Toward 
it  a  thousand  lines  of  interest  converge,  from  it  a  thousand 
lines  of  influence  flow.  Public  opinion  is  unconsciously 
moulded  by  it,  for  the  atmosphere  of  the  home  follows  the 
father  into  his  office,  the  son  into  his  college,  the  daugh- 
ter into  her  intimate  companionships.  The  newspaper, 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS          47 

therefore,  which  keeps  the  family  in  touch  with  the  out- 
side world,  though  it  may  have  to  be  managed  with  more 
discretion  than  one  whose  circulation  is  chiefly  in  the 
streets,  finds  its  compensation  in  its  increased  radius  of 
influence  of  the  subtler  sort.  For  such  a  field,  nothing  is 
less  fit  than  the  noisome  domestic  scandals  and  the  gory 
horrors  which  fill  so  much  of  the  space  in  newspapers  of 
the  lowest  rank,  and  which  in  these  later  years  have  made 
occasional  inroads  into  some  of  a  higher  grade.  Unfor- 
tunately, these  occasional  inroads  do  more  to  damage  the 
general  standing  of  the  press  than  the  habitual  revel  in 
vulgarity.  For  a  newspaper  which  frankly  avows  itself 
unhampered  by  niceties  of  taste  can  be  branded  and  set 
aside  as  belonging  in  the  impossible  category;  whereas, 
when  one  with  a  clean  exterior  and  a  reputation  for  re- 
spectability proves  unworthy,  its  faithlessness  arouses  in 
the  popular  mind  a  distrust  of  all  its  class. 

And  yet,  whatever  we  may  say  of  the  modern  press  on 
its  less  commendable  side,  we  are  bound  to  admit  that 
newspapers,  like  governments,  fairly  reflect  the  people 
they  serve.  Charles  Dudley  Warner  once  went  so  far  as 
to  say  that  no  matter  how  objectionable  the  character 
of  a  paper  may  be,  it  is  always  a  trifle  better  than  the 
patrons  on  whom  it  relies  for  its  support.  I  suspect  that 
Mr.  Warner's  comparison  rested  on  the  greater  frankness 
of  the  bad  paper,  which,  by  very  virtue  of  its  mode  of 
appeal,  is  bound  to  make  a  brave  parade  of  its  worst 
qualities;  whereas  the  reader  who  is  loudest  in  proclaiming 
in  public  his  repugnance  for  horrors,  and  his  detestation 
of  scandals,  may  in  private  be  buying  daily  the  sheet 
which  peddles  both  most  shamelessly. 

This  sort  of  conventional  hypocrisy  among  the  common 
run  of  people  is  easier  to  forgive  than  the  same  thing 
among  the  cultivated  few  whom  we  accept  as  mentors. 


48          THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

I  stumbled  upon  an  illuminating  incident  about  five  years 
ago  which  I  cannot  forbear  recalling  here.  A  young 
man  just  graduated  from  college,  where  he  had  attracted 
some  attention  by  the  cleverness  of  his  pen,  was  invited 
to  a  position  on  the  staff  of  the  New  York  Journal.  Visit- 
ing a  leading  member  of  the  college  faculty  to  say  farewell, 
he  mentioned  this  compliment  with  not  a  little  pride. 
In  an  instant  the  professor  was  up  in  arms,  with  an  earnest 
protest  against  his  handicapping  his  whole  career  by  having 
anything  to  do  with  so  monstrous  an  exponent  of  yellow 
journalism.  The  lad  was  deeply  moved  by  the  good  man's 
outburst,  and  went  home  sorrowful.  After  a  night's 
sleep  on  it,  he  resolved  to  profit  by  the  admonition,  and 
accordingly  called  upon  the  editor,  and  asked  permission 
to  withdraw  his  tentative  acceptance.  In  the  explana- 
tion which  followed  he  inadvertently  let  slip  the  name  of 
his  adviser.  He  saw  a  cynical  smile  cross  the  face  of  Mr. 
Hearst,  who  summoned  a  stenographer,  and  in  his  pres- 
ence dictated  a  letter  to  the  professor,  requesting  a  five- 
hundred-word  signed  article  for  the  next  Sunday's  issue 
and  inclosing  a  check  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars. 
On  Sunday  the  ingenuous  youth  beheld  the  article  in  a 
conspicuous  place  on  the  Journal's  editorial  page,  with  the 
professor's  full  name  appended  in  large  capitals. 

We  have  already  noted  some  of  the  effects  produced  on 
the  press  by  the  hurry-skurry  of  our  modern  life.  Quite 
as  significant  are  sundry  phenomena  recorded  by  Dr. 
Walter  Dill  Scott  as  the  result  of  an  inquiry  into  the  read- 
ing habits  of  two  thousand  representative  business  and 
professional  men  in  a  typical  American  city.  Among 
other  things,  he  discovered  that  most  of  them  spent  not 
to  exceed  fifteen  minutes  a  day  on  their  newspapers.  As 
some  spent  less,  and  some  divided  the  time  between  two 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS          49 

or  three  papers,  the  average  period  devoted  to  any  one 
paper  could  safely  be  placed  at  from  five  to  ten  minutes. 
The  admitted  practice  of  most  of  the  group  was  to  look 
at  the  headlines,  the  table  of  contents,  and  the  weather 
reports,  and  then  apparently  at  some  specialty  in  which 
they  were  individually  interested.  The  editorial  articles 
seem  to  have  offered  them  few  attractions,  but  news  items 
of  one  sort  or  another  engaged  seventy-five  per  cent  of 
their  attention. 

In  an  age  as  skeptical  as  ours,  there  is  nothing  astonishing 
in  the  low  valuation  given,  by  men  of  a  class  competent 
to  do  their  own  thinking,  to  anonymous  opinion;  but  it 
will  strike  many  as  strange  that  this  class  takes  no  deeper 
interest  in  the  news  of  the  day.  The  trained  psychologist 
may  find  it  worth  while  to  study  out  here  the  relation  of 
cause  and  effect.  Does  the  ordinary  man  of  affairs  show 
so  scant  regard  for  his  newspaper  because  he  no  longer 
believes  half  it  tells  him,  or  only  because  his  mind  is  so 
absorbed  in  matters  closer  at  hand,  and  directly  affecting 
his  livelihood?  Have  the  newspapers  perverted  the  public 
taste  with  sensational  surprises  till  it  can  no  longer  appre- 
ciate normal  information  normally  conveyed? 

Professor  Miinsterberg  would  doubtless  have  told  us  that 
the  foregoing  statistics  simply  justify  his  charge  against 
Americans  as  a  people;  that  we  have  gone  leaping  and 
gasping  through  life  till  we  have  lost  the  faculty  of  mental 
concentration,  and  hence  that  few  of  us  can  read  any 
more.  Whatever  the  explanation,  the  central  fact  has 
been  duly  recognized  by  all  the  yellow  journals,  and  by 
some  also  which  have  not  yet  passed  beyond  the  cream- 
colored  stage.  The  "scare  heads"  and  exaggerated  type 
which,  as  a  lure  for  purchasers,  filled  all  their  needs  a  few 
years  ago,  are  no  longer  regarded  as  sufficient,  but  have 
given  way  to  startling  bill-board  effects,  with  huge  head- 


50          THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS 

lines,  in  block-letter  and  vermilion  ink,  spread  across  an 
entire  front  page. 

The  worst  phase  of  this  whole  business,  however,  is 
one  which  does  not  appear  on  the  surface,  but  which  cer- 
tainly offers  food  for  serious  reflection.  The  point  of 
view  from  which  all  my  criticisms  have  been  made  is  that 
of  the  citizen  of  fair  intelligence  and  education.  It  is  he 
who  has  been  weaned  from  his  faith  in  the  organ  of  opinion 
which  satisfied  his  father,  till  he  habitually  sneers  at 
"mere  newspaper  talk";  it  is  he  who  has  descended  from 
reading  to  simply  skimming  the  news,  and  who  consciously 
suffers  from  the  errors  which  adulterate,  and  the  vul- 
garity which  taints,  that  product.  But  there  is  another 
element  in  the  community  which  has  not  his  well-sharp- 
ened instinct  for  discrimination;  which  can  afford  to  buy 
only  the  cheapest,  and  is  drawn  toward  the  lowest,  daily 
prints;  which,  during  the  noon  hour  and  at  night,  finds 
time  to  devour  all  the  tenement  tragedies,  all  the  palace 
scandals,  and  all  the  incendiary  appeals  designed  to  make 
the  poor  man  think  that  thrift  is  robbery.  Over  that 
element  we  find  the  vicious  newspaper  still  exercising  an 
enormous  sway;  and,  admitting  that  so  large  a  proportion 
of  the  outwardly  reputable  press  has  lost  its  hold  upon  the 
better  class  of  readers,  what  must  we  look  for  as  the  re- 
sultant of  two  such  unbalanced  forces? 

Not  a  line  of  these  few  pages  has  been  written  in  a 
carping,  much  less  in  a  pessimistic  spirit.  I  love  the 
profession  in  whose  practice  I  passed  the  largest  and 
happiest  part  of  my  life;  but  the  very  pride  I  feel  in  its 
worthy  achievements  makes  me,  perhaps,  the  more  sensi- 
tive to  its  shortcomings  as  these  reveal  themselves  to  an 
unprejudiced  scrutiny.  The  limits  of  this  article  as  to 
both  space  and  scope  forbid  my  following  its  subject  into 
some  inviting  by-paths:  as,  for  instance,  the  distinction 


THE  WANING  POWER  OF  THE  PRESS          51 

to  be  observed  between  initiative  and  support  in  compar- 
ing the  influence  of  the  modern  newspaper  with  that  of 
its  ancestor  of  a  half  -century  ago.  I  am  sorry,  also,  to 
put  forth  so  many  strictures  without  furnishing  a  con- 
structive sequel.  It  would  be  interesting,  for  example, 
to  weigh  such  possibilities  as  an  endowed  newspaper  which 
should  do  for  the  press,  as  a  protest  against  its  offenses  of 
deliberation  and  its  faults  of  haste  and  carelessness,  what 
an  endowed  theatre  might  do  for  the  rescue  of  the  stage 
from  a  condition  of  chronic  inanity.  But  it  must  remain 
for  a  more  profound  philosopher,  whose  function  is  to 
specialize  in  opinion  rather  than  to  generalize  in  comment, 
to  show  what  remedies  are  practicable  for  the  disorders 
which  beset  the  body  of  our  modern  journalism. 


-tt 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS 

BY   H.    L.    MENCKEN 


ASPIRING,  toward  the  end  of  my  nonage,  to  the  black 
robes  of  a  dramatic  critic,  I  took  counsel  with  an  ancient 
whose  service  went  back  to  the  days  of  Our  American 
Cousin,  asking  him  what  qualities  were  chiefly  demanded 
by  the  craft. 

"The  main  idea,"  he  told  me  frankly,  "is  to  be  interest- 
ing, to  write  a  good  story.  All  else  is  dross.  Of  course,  I 
am  not  against  accuracy,  fairness,  information,  learning. 
If  you  want  to  read  Lessing  and  Freytag,  Hazlitt  and 
Brunetiere,  go  read  them:  they  will  do  you  no  harm.  It 
is  also  useful  to  know  something  about  Shakespeare.  But 
unless  you  can  make  people  read  your  criticisms,  you  may 
as  well  shut  up  your  shop.  And  the  only  way  to  make 
them  read  you  is  to  give  them  something  exciting." 

"You  suggest,  then,"  I  ventured,  "a  certain  —  feroc- 
ity?" 

"I  do,"  replied  my  venerable  friend.  "Read  George 
Henry  Lewes,  and  see  how  he  did  it  —  sometimes  with  a 
bladder  on  a  string,  usually  with  a  meat-axe.  Knock  some- 
body on  the  head  every  day  —  if  not  an  actor,  then  the 
author,  and  if  not  the  author,  then  the  manager.  And  if 
the  play  and  the  performance  are  perfect,  then  excoriate 
someone  who  does  n't  think  so  —  a  fellow  critic,  a  rival 
manager,  the  unappreciative  public.  But  make  it  hearty; 
make  it  hot!  The  public  would  rather  be  the  butt  itself 
than  have  no  butt  in  the  ring.  That  is  Rule  Number  1 
of  American  psychology  —  and  of  English,  too,  but  more 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS  53 

especially  of  American.  You  must  give  a  good  show  to 
get  a  crowd,  and  a  good  show  means  one  with  slaughter 
in  it." 

JDestiny  soon  robbed  me  of  my  critical  shroud,  and  I  fell 
into  a  long  succession  of  less  aesthetic  newspaper  berths, 
from  that  of  police  reporter  to  that  of  managing  editor, 
but  always  the  advice  of  my  ancient  counselor  kept  turn- 
ing over  and  over  in  my  memory,  and  as  chance  offered 
I  began  to  act  upon  it,  and  whenever  I  acted  upon  it  I 
found  that  it  worked.  What  is  more,  I  found  that  other 
newspaper  men  acted  upon  it  too,  some  of  them  quite 
consciously  and  frankly,  and  others  through  a  veil  of  self- 
deception,  more  or  less  diaphanous.  The  primary  aim  of 
all  of  them,  no  less  when  they  played  the  secular  lokanaan 
than  when  they  played  the  mere  newsmonger,  was  to  please 
the  crowd,  to  give  a  good  show;  and  the  way  they  set  about 
giving  that  good  show  was  by  first  selecting  a  deserving 
victim,  and  then  putting  him  magnificently  to  the  torture. 

This  was  their  method  when  they  were  performing  for 
their  own  profit  only,  when  their  one  motive  was  to  make 
the  public  read  their  paper;  but  it  was  still  their  method 
when  they  were  battling  bravely  and  unselfishly  for  the 
public  good,  and  so  discharging  the  highest  duty  of  their 
profession.  They  lightened  the  dull  days  of  midsummer 
by  pursuing  recreant  aldermen  with  bloodhounds  and 
artillery,  by  muckraking  unsanitary  milk-dealers,  or  by 
denouncing  Sunday  liquor-selling  in  suburban  parks  — 
and  they  fought  constructive  campaigns  for  good  govern- 
ment in  exactly  the  same  gothic,  melodramatic  way.  Al- 
ways their  first  aim  was  to  find  a  concrete  target,  to  visual- 
ize their  cause  in  some  definite  and  defiant  opponent.  And 
always  their  second  aim  was  to  shell  that  opponent  until 
he  dropped  his  arms  and  took  to  ignominious  flight.  It 
was  not  enough  to  maintain  and  to  prove:  it  was  necessary 


54  NEWSPAPER  MORALS 

also  to  pursue  and  overcome,  to  lay  a  specific  somebody 
low,  to  give  the  good  show  aforesaid. 

Does  this  confession  of  newspaper  practice  involve  a 
libel  upon  the  American  people?  Perhaps  it  does  —  on 
the  theory,  let  us  say,  that  the  greater  the  truth,  the  greater 
the  libel.  But  I  doubt  if  any  reflective  newspaper  man, 
however  lofty  his  professional  ideals,  will  ever  deny  any 
essential  part  of  that  truth.  He  knows  very  well  that  a 
definite  limit  is  set,  not  only  upon  the  people's  capacity 
for  grasping  intellectual  concepts,  but  also  upon  their  ca- 
pacity for  grasping  moral  concepts.  He  knows  that  it  is 
necessary,  if  he  would  catch  and  inflame  them,  to  state  his 
ethical  syllogism  in  the  homely  terms  of  their  habitual 
ethical  thinking.  And  he  knows  that  this  is  best  done  by 
dramatizing  and  vulgarizing  it,  by  filling  it  with  dynamic 
and  emotional  significance,  by  translating  all  argument  for 
a  principle  into  rage  against  a  man. 

In  brief,  he  knows  that  it  is  hard  for  the  plain  people  to 
think  about  a  thing,  but  easy  for  them  to  feel.  Error,  to 
hold  their  attention,  must  be  visualized  as  a  villain,  and 
the  villain  must  proceed  swiftly  to  his  inevitable  retribu- 
tion. They  can  understand  that  process ;  it  is  simple,  usual, 
satisfying;  it  squares  with  their  primitive  conception  of 
justice  as  a  form  of  revenge.  The  hero  fires  them  too,  but 
less  certainly,  less  violently  than  the  villain.  His  defect  is 
that  he  offers  thrills  at  second-hand.  It  is  the  merit  of  the 
villain,  pursued  publicly  by  a  posse  comitatus,  that  he  makes 
the  public  breast  the  primary  seat  of  heroism,  that  he 
makes  every  citizen  a  personal  participant  in  a  glorious 
act  of  justice.  Wherefore  it  is  ever  the  aim  of  the  saga- 
cious journalist  to  foster  that  sense  of  personal  participa- 
tion. The  wars  that  he  wages  are  always  described  as  the 
people's  wars,  and  he  himself  affects  to  be  no  more  than 
their  strategist  and  claque.  When  the  victory  has  once 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS  55 

been  gained,  true  enough,  he  may  take  all  the  credit  with- 
out a  blush;  but  while  the  fight  is  going  on  he  always  pre- 
tends that  every  honest  yeoman  is  enlisted,  and  he  is  even 
eager  to  make  it  appear  that  the  yeomanry  began  it  on 
their  own  motion,  and  out  of  the  excess  of  their  natural 
virtue. 

I  assume  here,  as  an  axiom  too  obvious  to  be  argued, 
that  the  chief  appeal  of  a  newspaper,  in  all  such  holy 
causes,  is  not  at  all  to  the  educated  and  reflective  minority 
of  citizens,  but  frankly  to  the  ignorant  and  unreflective 
majority.  The  truth  is  that  it  would  usually  get  a  news- 
paper nowhere  to  address  its  exhortations  to  the  former; 
for,  in  the  first  place,  they  are  too  few  in  number  to  make 
their  support  of  much  value  in  general  engagements,  and, 
in  the  second  place,  it  is  almost  always  impossible  to  con- 
vert them  into  disciplined  and  useful  soldiers.  They  are 
too  cantankerous  for  that,  too  ready  with  embarrassing 
strategy  of  their  own.  One  of  the  principal  marks  of  an 
educated  man,  indeed,  is  the  fact  that  he  does  not  take  his 
opinions  from  newspapers  —  not,  at  any  rate,  from  the 
militant,  crusading  newspapers.  On  the  contrary,  his  atti- 
tude toward  them  is  almost  always  one  of  frank  cynicism, 
with  indifference  as  its  mildest  form  and  contempt  as  its 
commonest.  He  knows  that  they  are  constantly  falling 
into  false  reasoning  about  the  things  within  his  personal 
knowledge, —  that  is,  within  the  narrow  circle  of  his  spe- 
cial education, —  and  so  he  assumes  that  they  make  the 
same,  or  even  worse,  errors  about  other  things,  whether 
intellectual  or  moral.  This  assumption,  it  may  be  said  at 
once,  is  quite  justified  by  the  facts. 

I  know  of  no  subject,  in  truth,  save  perhaps  baseball, 
on  which  the  average  American  newspaper,  even  in  the 
larger  cities,  discourses  with  unfailing  sense  and  under- 
standing. Whenever  the  public  journals  presume  to  illu- 


56  NEWSPAPER  MORALS 

minate  such  a  matter  as  municipal  taxation,  for  example, 
or  the  extension  of  local  transportation  facilities,  or  the 
punishment  of  public  or  private  criminals,  or  the  control 
of  public-service  corporations,  or  the  revision  of  city  char- 
ters, the  chief  effect  of  their  effort  is  to  introduce  into  it  a 
host  of  extraneous  issues,  most  of  them  wholly  emotional, 
and  so  they  contrive  to  make  it  unintelligible  to  all  earnest 
seekers  after  the  truth. 

But  it  does  not  follow  thereby  that  they  also  make  it 
unintelligible  to  their  special  client,  the  man  in  the  street. 
Far  from  it.  What  they  actually  accomplish  is  the  exact 
opposite.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  precisely  by  this  process  of 
transmutation  and  emotionalization  that  they  bring  a  given 
problem  down  to  the  level  of  that  man's  comprehension, 
and,  what  is  more  important,  within  the  range  of  his  active 
sympathies.  He  is  not  interested  in  anything  that  does 
not  stir  him,  and  he  is  not  stirred  by  anything  that  fails 
to  impinge  upon  his  small  stock  of  customary  appetites 
and  attitudes.  His  daily  acts  are  ordered,  not  by  any  com- 
plex process  of  reasoning,  but  by  a  continuous  process  of 
very  elemental  feeling.  He  is  not  at  all  responsive  to 
purely  intellectual  argument,  even  when  its  theme  is  his 
own  ultimate  benefit,  for  such  argument  quickly  gets 
beyond  his  immediate  interest  and  experience.  But  he  is 
very  responsive  to  emotional  suggestion,  particularly  when 
it  is  crudely  and  violently  made;  and  it  is  to  this  weakness 
that  the  newspapers  must  ever  address  their  endeavors. 
In  brief,  they  must  try  to  arouse  his  horror,  or  indignation, 
or  pity,  or  simply  his  lust  for  slaughter.  Once  they  have 
done  that,  they  have  him  safely  by  the  nose.  He  will  fol- 
low blindly  until  his  emotion  wears  out.  He  will  be  ready 
to  believe  anything,  however  absurd,  so  long  as  he  is  in  his 
state  of  psychic  tumescence. 

In  the  reform  campaigns  which  periodically  rock  our 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS  57 

large  cities, —  and  our  small  ones,  too, —  the  newspapers 
habitually  make  use  of  this  fact.  Such  campaigns  are  not 
intellectual  wars  upon  erroneous  principles,  but  emotional 
wars  upon  errant  men:  they  always  revolve  around  the 
pursuit  of  some  definite,  concrete,  fugitive  malefactor,  or 
group  of  malefactors.  That  is  to  say,  they  belong  to  popu- 
lar sport  rather  than  to  the  science  of  government;  the 
impulse  behind  them  is  always  far  more  orgiastic  than  re- 
flective. For  good  government  in  the  abstract,  the  people 
of  the  United  States  seem  to  have  no  liking,  or,  at  all 
events,  no  passion.  It  is  impossible  to  get  them  stirred  up 
over  it,  or  even  to  make  them  give  serious  thought  to  it. 
They  seem  to  assume  that  it  is  a  mere  phantasm  of  theo- 
rists, a  political  will-o'-the-wisp,  a  Utopian  dream  —  wholly 
uninteresting,  and  probably  full  of  dangers  and  tricks.  The 
very  discussion  of  it  bores  them  unspeakably,  and  those 
papers  which  habitually  discuss  it  logically  and  unemo- 
tionally —  for  example,  the  New  York  Evening  Post  —  are 
diligently  avoided  by  the  mob.  What  the  mob  thirsts  for 
is  not  good  government  in  itself,  but  the  merry  chase  of  a 
definite  exponent  of  bad  government.  The  newspaper 
that  discovers  such  an  exponent  —  or,  more  accurately, 
the  newspaper  that  discovers  dramatic  and  overwhelming 
evidence  against  him  —  has  all  the  material  necessary  for 
a  reform  wave  of  the  highest  emotional  intensity.  All  that 
it  need  do  is  to  goad  the  victim  into  a  fight.  Once  he  has 
formally  joined  the  issue,  the  people  will  do  the  rest.  They 
are  always  ready  for  a  man-hunt,  and  their  favorite  quarry 
is  the  man  of  politics.  If  no  such  prey  is  at  hand,  they  will 
turn  to  wealthy  debauchees,  to  fallen  Sunday-school  super- 
intendents, to  money  barons,  to  white-slave  traders,  to 
unsedulous  chiefs  of  police.  But  their  first  choice  is  the 
boss. 

In  assaulting  bosses,  however,  a  newspaper  must  look 


58  NEWSPAPER  MORALS 

carefully  to  its  ammunition,  and  to  the  order  and  interre- 
lation of  its  salvos.  There  is  such  a  thing,  at  the  start,  as 
overshooting  the  mark,  and  the  danger  thereof  is  very 
serious.  The  people,  must  be  aroused  by  degrees,  gently 
at  first,  and  then  with  more  and  more  ferocity.  They  are 
not  capable  of  reaching  the  maximum  of  indignation  at 
one  leap :  even  on  the  side  of  pure  emotion  they  have  their 
rigid  limitations.  And  this,  of  course,  is  because  even 
emotion  must  have  a  quasi-intellectual  basis,  because  even 
indignation  must  arise  out  of  facts.  One  fact  at  a  time! 
If  a  newspaper  printed  the  whole  story  of  a  political  boss's 
misdeeds  in  a  single  article,  that  article  would  have  scarcely 
any  effect  whatever,  for  it  would  be  far  too  long  for  the 
average  reader  to  read  and  absorb.  He  would  never  get 
to  the  end  of  it,  and  the  part  he  actually  traversed  would 
remain  muddled  and  distasteful  in  his  memory.  Far  from 
arousing  an  emotion  in  him,  it  would  arouse  only  ennui, 
which  is  the  very  antithesis  of  emotion.  He  cannot  read 
more  than  three  columns  of  any  one  subject  without  tiring: 
6,000  words,  I  should  say,  is  the  extreme  limit  of  his  appe- 
tite. And  the  nearer  he  is  pushed  to  that  limit,  the  greater 
the  strain  upon  his  psychic  digestion.  He  can  absorb  a 
single  capital  fact,  leaping  from  a  headline,  at  one  colossal 
gulp ;  but  he  could  not  down  a  dissertation  in  twenty.  And 
the  first  desideratum  in  a  headline  is  that  it  deal  with  a 
single  and  capital  fact.  It  must  be,  "McGinnis  Steals 
$1,257,867.25,"  not,  "McGinnis  Lacks  Ethical  Sense." 

Moreover,  a  newspaper  article  which  presumed  to  tell 
the  whole  of  a  thrilling  story  in  one  gargantuan  install- 
ment would  lack  the  dynamic  element,  the  quality  of 
mystery  and  suspense.  Even  if  it  should  achieve  the 
miracle  of  arousing  the  reader  to  a  high  pitch  of  excite- 
ment, it  would  let  him  drop  again  next  day.  If  he  is  to 
be  kept  in  his  frenzy  long  enough  for  it  to  be  dangerous  to 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS  59 

the  common  foe,  he  must  be  led  into  it  gradually.  The 
newspaper  in  charge  of  the  business  must  harrow  him, 
tease  him,  promise  him,  hold  him.  It  is  thus  that  his 
indignation  is  transformed  from  a  state  of  being  into  a 
state  of  gradual  and  cumulative  becoming;  it  is  thus  that 
reform  takes  on  the  character  of  a  hotly  contested  game, 
with  the  issue  agreeably  in  doubt.  And  it  is  always  as  a 
game,  of  course,  that  the  man  in  the  street  views  moral 
endeavor.  Whether  its  proposed  victim  be  a  political  boss, 
a  police  captain,  a  gambler,  a  fugitive  murderer,  or  a  dis- 
graced clergyman,  his  interest  in  it  is  almost  purely  a  sport- 
ing interest.  And  the  intensity  of  that  interest,  of  course, 
depends  upon  the  fierceness  of  the  clash.  The  game  is 
fascinating  in  proportion  as  the  morally  pursued  puts  up 
a  stubborn  defense,  and  in  proportion  as  the  newspaper 
directing  the  pursuit  is  resourceful  and  merciless,  and  in 
proportion  as  the  eminence  of  the  quarry  is  great  and  his 
resultant  downfall  spectacular.  A  war  against  a  ward 
boss  seldom  attracts  much  attention,  even  in  the  smaller 
cities,  for  he  is  insignificant  to  begin  with  and  an  inept  and 
cowardly  fellow  to  end  with;  but  the  famous  war  upon 
William  M.  Tweed  shook  the  whole  nation,  for  he  was  a 
man  of  tremendous  power,  he  was  a  brave  and  enterprising 
antagonist,  and  his  fall  carried  a  multitude  of  other  men 
with  him.  Here,  indeed,  was  sport  royal,  and  the  plain 
people  took  to  it  with  avidity. 

But  once  such  a  buccaneer  is  overhauled  and  manacled, 
the  show  is  over,  and  the  people  take  no  further  interest  in 
reform.  In  place  of  the  fallen  boss,  a  so-called  reformer 
has  been  set  up.  He  goes  into  office  with  public  opinion 
apparently  solidly  behind  him :  there  is  every  promise  that 
the  improvement  achieved  will  be  lasting.  But  experience 
shows  that  it  seldom  is.  Reform  does  not  last.  The  re- 
former quickly  loses  his  public.  His  usual  fate,  indeed,  is 


60  NEWSPAPER  MORALS 

to  become  the  pet  butt  and  aversion  of  his  public.  The 
very  mob  that  put  him  into  office  chases  him  out  of  office. 
And  after  all,  there  is  nothing  very  astonishing  about  this 
change  of  front,  which  is  really  far  less  a  change  of  front 
than  it  seems.  The  mob  has  been  fed,  for  weeks  preceding 
the  reformer's  elevation,  upon  the  blood  of  big  and  little 
bosses;  it  has  acquired  a  taste  for  their  chase,  and  for  the 
chase  in  general.  Now,  of  a  sudden,  it  is  deprived  of  that 
stimulating  sport.  The  old  bosses  are  in  retreat;  there  are 
yet  no  new  bosses  to  belabor  and  pursue;  the  newspapers 
which  elected  the  reformer  are  busily  apologizing  for  his 
amateurish  errors  —  a  dull  and  dispiriting  business.  No 
wonder  it  now  becomes  possible  for  the  old  bosses,  acting 
through  their  inevitable  friends  on  the  respectable  side, — 
the  "solid"  business  men,  the  takers  of  favors,  the  under- 
writers of  political  enterprise,  and  the  newspapers  influ- 
enced by  these  pious  fellows, —  to  start  the  rabble  against 
the  reformer.  The  trick  is  quite  as  easy  as  that  but  lately 
done.  The  rabble  wants  a  good  show,  a  game,  a  victim: 
it  does  n't  care  who  that  victim  may  be.  How  easy  to  con- 
vince it  that  the  reformer  is  a  scoundrel  himself,  that  he  is 
as  bad  as  any  of  the  old  bosses,  that  he  ought  to  go  to  the 
block  for  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors!  It  never  had 
any  actual  love  for  him,  or  even  any  faith  in  him;  his  elec- 
tion was  a  mere  incident  of  the  chase  of  his  predecessor. 
No  wonder  that  it  falls  upon  him  eagerly,  butchering  him 
to  make  a  new  holiday! 

This  is  what  has  happened  over  and  over  again  in  every 
large  American  city  —  Chicago,  New  York,  St.  Louis,  Cin- 
cinnati, Pittsburg,  New  Orleans,  Baltimore,  San  Francisco, 
St.  Paul,  Kansas  City.  Every  one  of  these  places  has  had 
its  melodramatic  reform  campaigns  and  its  inevitable  reac- 
tions. The  people  have  leaped  to  the  overthrow  of  bosses, 
and  then  wearied  of  the  ensuing  tedium.  A  perfectly 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS  61 

typical  slipping  back,  to  be  matched  in  a  dozen  other  cities, 
is  going  on  in  Philadelphia  to-day  [1914].  Mayor  Rudolph 
Blankenberg,  a  veteran  war-horse  of  reform,  came  into 
office  through  the  downfall  of  the  old  bosses,  a  catastrophe 
for  which  he  had  labored  and  agitated  for  more  than  thirty 
years.  But  now  the  old  bosses  are  getting  their  revenge  by 
telling  the  people  that  he  is  a  violent  and  villainous  boss 
himself.  Certain  newspapers  are  helping  them;  they  have 
concealed  but  powerful  support  among  financiers  and  busi- 
ness men;  volunteers  have  even  come  forward  from  other 
cities  —  for  example,  the  Mayor  of  Baltimore.  Slowly  but 
surely  this  insidious  campaign  is  making  itself  felt;  the 
common  people  show  signs  of  yearning  for  another  auto- 
da-fe.  Mayor  Blankenberg,  unless  I  am  the  worst  prophet 
unhung,  will  meet  with  an  overwhelming  defeat  in  1915.1 
And  it  will  be  a  very  difficult  thing  to  put  even  a  half- 
decent  man  in  his  place:  the  victory  of  the  bosses  will  be 
so  nearly  complete  that  they  will  be  under  no  necessity  of 
offering  compromises.  Employing  a  favorite  device  of 
political  humor,  they  may  select  a  harmless  blank  car- 
tridge, a  respectable  numskull,  what  is  commonly  called  a 
perfumer.  But  the  chances  are  that  they  will  select  a  frank 
ringster,  and  that  the  people  will  elect  him  with  cheers. 


ii 

Such  is  the  ebb  and  flow  of  emotion  in  the  popular 
heart — or  perhaps,  if  we  would  be  more  accurate,  the  pop- 
ular liver.  It  does  not  constitute  an  intelligible  system  of 
morality,  for  morality,  at  bottom,  is  not  at  all  an  instinctive 
matter,  but  a  purely  intellectual  matter:  its  essence  is  the 

1  This  was  written  in  1914.  The  overthrow  of  Blankenberg  took  place 
as  forecast,  and  Philadelphia  has  since  enjoyed  boss  rule  again,  with 
plentiful  scandals.—  H.  L.  M. 


62  NEWSPAPER  MORALS 

control  of  impulse  by  an  ideational  process,  the  subordina- 
tion of  the  immediate  desire  to  the  distant  aim.  But  such 
as  it  is,  it  is  the  only  system  of  morality  that  the  emotional 
majority  is  capable  of  comprehending  and  practicing;  and 
so  the  newspapers,  which  deal  with  majorities  quite  as 
frankly  as  politicians  deal  with  them,  have  to  admit  it 
into  their  own  system.  That  is  to  say,  they  cannot  accom- 
plish anything  by  talking  down  to  the  public  from  a  moral 
plane  higher  than  its  own :  they  must  take  careful  account 
of  its  habitual  ways  of  thinking,  its  moral  thirsts  and  preju- 
dices, its  well-defined  limitations.  They  must  remember 
clearly,  as  judges  and  lawyers  have  to  remember  it,  that 
the  morality  subscribed  to  by  that  public  is  far  from  the 
stern  and  arctic  morality  of  professors  of  the  science.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  a  mellower  and  more  human  thing;  it 
has  room  for  the  antithetical  emotions  of  sympathy  and 
scorn;  it  makes  no  effort  to  separate  the  criminal  from  his 
crime. 

The  higher  moralities,  running  up  to  that  of  Puritans 
and  archbishops,  allow  no  weight  to  custom,  to  general  rep- 
utation, to  temptation;  they  hold  it  to  be  no  defense  of 
a  ballot-box  stuffer,  for  example,  that  he  had  scores  of 
accomplices  and  that  he  is  kind  to  his  little  children.  But 
the  popular  morality  regards  such  a  defense  as  sound  and 
apposite;  it  is  perfectly  willing  to  convert  a  trial  on  a 
specific  charge  into  a  trial  on  a  general  charge.  And  in 
giving  judgment  it  is  always  ready  to  let  feeling  triumph 
over  every  idea  of  abstract  justice;  and  very  often  that 
feeling  has  its  origin  and  support,  not  in  matters  actually 
in  evidence,  but  in  impressions  wholly  extraneous  and  ir- 
relevant. 

Hence  the  need  of  a  careful  and  wary  approach  in  all 
newspaper  crusades,  particularly  on  the  political  side.  On 
the  one  hand,  as  I  have  said,  the  astute  journalist  must 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS  63 

remember  the  public's  incapacity  for  taking  in  more  than 
one  thing  at  a  time,  and  on  the  other  hand,  he  must  re- 
member its  disposition  to  be  swayed  by  mere  feeling,  and 
its  habit  of  founding  that  feeling  upon  general  and  indefi- 
nite impressions.  Reduced  to  a  rule  of  everyday  practice, 
this  means  that  the  campaign  against  a  given  malefactor 
must  begin  a  good  while  before  the  capital  accusation  — 
that  is,  the  accusation  upon  which  a  verdict  of  guilty  is 
sought  —  is  formally  brought  forward.  There  must  be  a 
shelling  of  the  fortress  before  the  assault;  suspicion  must 
precede  indignation.  If  this  preliminary  work  is  neglected 
or  ineptly  performed,  the  result  is  apt  to  be  a  collapse  of 
the  campaign.  The  public  is  not  ready  to  switch  from  con- 
fidence to  doubt  on  the  instant;  if  its  general  attitude  to- 
ward a  man  is  sympathetic,  that  sympathy  is  likely  to  sur- 
vive even  a  very  vigorous  attack.  The  accomplished  mob- 
master  lays  his  course  accordingly.  His  first  aim  is  to 
arouse  suspicion,  to  break  down  the  presumption  of  inno- 
cence —  supposing,  of  course,  that  he  finds  it  to  exist.  He 
knows  that  he  must  plant  a  seed,  and  tend  it  long  and 
lovingly,  before  he  may  pluck  his  dragon-flower.  He 
knows  that  all  storms  of  emotion,  however  suddenly  they 
may  seem  to  come  up,  have  their  origin  over  the  rim  of 
consciousness,  and  that  their  gathering  is  really  a  slow, 
slow  business.  I  mix  the  figures  shamelessly,  as  mob- 
masters  mix 'their  brews! 

It  is  this  persistence  of  an  attitude  which  gives  a  certain 
degree  of  immunity  to  all  newcomers  in  office,  even  in  the 
face  of  sharp  and  resourceful  assault.  For  example,  a  new 
president.  The  majority  in  favor  of  him  on  Inauguration 
Day  is  usually  overwhelming,  no  matter  how  small  his 
plurality  in  the  November  preceding,  for  common  self- 
respect  demands  that  the  people  magnify  his  virtues:  to 
deny  them  would  be  a  confession  of  national  failure,  a 


64  NEWSPAPER  MORALS 

destructive  criticism  of  the  Republic.  And  that  benignant 
disposition  commonly  survives  until  his  first  year  in  office 
is  more  than  half  gone.  The  public  prejudice  is  wholly 
on  his  side :  his  critics  find  it  difficult  to  arouse  any  indig- 
nation against  him,  even  when  the  offenses  they  lay  to 
him  are  in  violation  of  the  fundamental  axioms  of  popular 
morality.  This  explains  why  it  was  that  Mr.  Wilson  was 
so  little  damaged  by  the  charge  of  federal  interference  in 
the  Diggs-Caminetti  case  —  a  charge  well  supported  by 
the  evidence  brought  forward,  and  involving  a  serious  vio- 
lation of  popular  notions  of  virtue.  And  this  explains,  too, 
why  he  survived  the  oratorical  pilgrimages  of  his  Secretary 
of  State  at  a  time  of  serious  international  difficulty  —  pil- 
grimages apparently  undertaken  with  his  approval,  and 
hence  at  his  political  risk  and  cost.  The  people  were  still 
in  favor  of  him,  and  so  he  was  not  brought  to  irate  and 
drum-head  judgment.  No  roar  of  indignation  arose  to  the 
heavens.  The  opposition  newspapers,  with  sure  instinct, 
felt  the  irresistible  force  of  public  opinion  on  his  side,  and 
so  they  ceased  their  clamor  very  quickly. 

But  it  is  just  such  a  slow  accumulation  of  pin-pricks, 
each  apparently  harmless  in  itself,  that  finally  draws  blood ; 
it  is  by  just  such  a  leisurely  and  insidious  process  that  the 
presumption  of  innocence  is  destroyed,  and  a  hospitality 
to  suspicion  created.  The  campaign  against  Governor 
Sulzer  in  New  York  offers  a  classic  example  of  this  process 
in  operation,  with  very  skillful  gentlemen,  journalistic  and 
political,  in  control  of  it.  The  charges  on  which  Governor 
Sulzer  was  finally  brought  to  impeachment  were  not 
launched  at  him  out  of  a  clear  sky,  nor  while  the  primary 
presumption  in  his  favor  remained  unshaken.  Not  at  all. 
They  were  launched  at  a  carefully  selected  and  critical 
moment  —  at  the  end,  to  wit,  of  a  long  and  well-managed 
series  of  minor  attacks.  The  fortress  of  his  popularity  was 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS  65 

bombarded  a  long  while  before  it  was  assaulted.  He  was 
pursued  with  insinuations  and  innuendoes;  various  per- 
sons, more  or  less  dubious,  were  led  to  make  various 
charges,  more  or  less  vague,  against  him;  the  managers  of 
the  campaign  sought  to  poison  the  plain  people  with 
doubts,  misunderstandings,  suspicions.  This  effort,  so 
diligently  made,  was  highly  successful;  and  so  the  capital 
charges,  when  they  were  brought  forward  at  last,  had  the 
effect  of  confirmations,  of  corroborations,  of  proofs.  But 
if  Tammany  had  made  them  during  the  first  few  months 
of  Governor  Sulzer's  term,  while  all  doubts  were  yet  in 
his  favor,  it  would  have  got  only  scornful  laughter  for  its 
pains.  The  ground  had  to  be  prepared;  the  public  mind 
had  to  be  put  into  training. 

The  end  of  my  space  is  near,  and  I  find  that  I  have 
written  of  popular  morality  very  copiously,  and  of  news- 
paper morality  very  little.  But,  as  I  have  said  before,  the 
one  is  the  other.  The  newspaper  must  adapt  its  pleading 
to  its  clients'  moral  limitations,  just  as  the  trial  lawyer 
must  adapt  his  pleading  to  the  jury's  limitations.  Neither 
may  like  the  job,  but  both  must  face  it  to  gain  a  larger 
end.  And  that  end,  I  believe,  is  a  worthy  one  in  the  news- 
paper's case  quite  as  often  as  in  the  lawyer's,  and  perhaps 
far  oftener.  The  art  of  leading  the  vulgar,  in  itself,  does 
no  discredit  to  its  practitioner.  Lincoln  practiced  it  un- 
ashamed, and  so  did  Webster,  Clay,  and  Henry.  What  is 
more,  these  men  practiced  it  with  frank  allowance  for  the 
nai'vete  of  the  people  they  presumed  to  lead.  It  was  Lin- 
coln's chief  source  of  strength,  indeed,  that  he  had  a  homely 
way  with  him,  that  he  could  reduce  complex  problems  to 
the  simple  terms  of  popular  theory  and  emotion,  that  he 
did  not  ask  little  fishes  to  think  and  act  like  whales.  This 
is  the  manner  in  which  the  newspapers  do  their  work,  and 


66  NEWSPAPER  MORALS 

in  the  long  run,  I  am  convinced,  they  accomplish  about  as 
much  good  as  harm  thereby.  Dishonesty,  of  course,  is 
not  unknown  among  them:  we  have  newspapers  in  this 
land  which  apply  a  truly  devilish  technical  skill  to  the 
achievement  of  unsound  and  unworthy  ends.  But  not  as 
many  of  them  as  perfectionists  usually  allege.  Taking  one 
with  another,  they  strive  in  the  right  direction.  They 
realize  the  massive  fact  that  the  plain  people,  for  all  their 
poverty  of  wit,  cannot  be  fooled  forever.  They  have  a 
healthy  fear  of  that  heathen  rage  which  so  often  serves 
their  uses. 

Look  back  a  generation  or  two.  Consider  the  history  of 
our  democracy  since  the  Civil  War.  Our  most  serious 
problems,  it  must  be  plain,  have  been  solved  orgiastically, 
and  to  the  tune  of  deafening  newspaper  urging  and  clamor. 
Men  have  been  washed  into  office  on  waves  of  emotion, 
and  washed  out  again  in  the  same  manner.  Measures  and 
policies  have  been  determined  by  indignation  far  more 
often  than  by  cold  reason.  But  is  the  net  result  evil?  Is 
there  even  any  permanent  damage  from  those  debauches 
of  sentiment  in  which  the  newspapers  have  acted  insin- 
cerely, unintelligently,  with  no  thought  save  for  the  show 
itself?  I  doubt  it.  The  effect  of  their  long  and  melo- 
dramatic chase  of  bosses  is  an  undoubted  improvement  in 
our  whole  governmental  method.  The  boss  of  to-day  is 
not  an  envied  first  citizen,  but  a  criminal  constantly  on 
trial.  He  himself  is  debarred  from  all  public  offices  of 
honor,  and  his  control  over  other  public  officers  grows  less 
and  less.  Elections  are  no  longer  boldly  stolen;  the  hum- 
blest citizen  may  go  to  the  polls  in  safety  and  cast  his  vote 
honestly;  the  machine  grows  less  dangerous  year  by  year; 
perhaps  it  is  already  less  dangerous  than  a  camorra  of 
Utopian  and  dehumanized  reformers  would  be.  We  begin 
to  develop  an  official  morality  which  actually  rises  above 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS  67 

our  private  morality.  Bribe-takers  are  sent  to  jail  by  the 
votes  of  jurymen  who  give  presents  in  their  daily  business, 
and  are  not  above  beating  the  street-car  company. 

And  so,  too,  in  narrower  fields.  The  white-slave  agita- 
tion of  a  year  or  so  ago  was  ludicrously  extravagant  and 
emotional,  but  its  net  effect  is  a  better  conscience,  a  new 
alertness.  The  newspapers  discharged  broadsides  of  12- 
inch  guns  to  bring  down  a  flock  of  buzzards  —  but  they 
brought  down  the  buzzards.  They  have  libeled  and 
lynched  the  police  —  but  the  police  are  the  better  for  it. 
They  have  represented  salicylic  acid  as  an  elder  brother  to 
bichloride  of  mercury  —  but  we  are  poisoned  less  than  we 
used  to  be.  .They  have  lifted  the  plain  people  to  frenzies 
of  senseless  terror  over  drinking-cups  and  neighbors  with 
coughs  —  but  the  death-rate  from  tuberculosis  declines. 
They  have  railroaded  men  to  prison,  denying  them  all 
their  common  rights — but  fewer  malefactors  escape  to-day 
than  yesterday. 

The  way  of  ethical  progress  is  not  straight.  It  describes, 
to  risk  a  mathematical  pun,  a  sort  of  drunken  hyperbola. 
But  if  we  thus  move  onward  and  upward  by  leaps  and 
bounces,  it  is  certainly  better  than  not  moving  at  all.  Each 
time,  perhaps,  we  slip  back,  but  each  time  we  stop  at  a 
higher  level. 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY 

BY   RALPH    PULITZER 

THE  striking  article  in  the  March  Atlantic  by  Mr.  Henry 
L.  Mencken,  on  "Newspaper  Morals,"  is  so  full  of  pal- 
pable facts  supporting  plausible  fallacies  that  simple  justice 
to  press  and  "proletariat"  seems  to  render  proper  a  few 
thoughts  in  answer  to  it. 

Mr.  Mencken's  main  facts,  summarized,  are  as  follows: 
that  press  and  public  often  approach  public  questions  too 
superficially  and  sentimentally;  that  the  sense  of  propor- 
tion is  too  often  lost  in  the  heat  of  campaigns;  that  the 
truth  is  too  often  obscured  by  the  intrusion  of  irrelevant 
personalities;  and  that  after  the  intemperate  extremes  of 
reform  waves  there  always  come  reactions  into  indiffer- 
ence to  the  evils  but  yesterday  so  furiously  fought. 

Mr.  Mencken's  fallacies  are:  the  supercilious  assump- 
tion that  these  weaknesses  are  not  matters  of  human  tem- 
perament running  up  and  down  through  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  every  division  of  society,  but  that,  on  the  contrary, 
they  are  class  affairs,  never  tainting  the  educated  classes, 
but  limited  to  "the  man  in  the  street,"  "the  rabble," 
"the  mob";  that  apparently  the  emotionalizing  of  public 
questions  by  the  press  is  to  be  censured  in  principle  and 
sneered  at  in  practice;  that  it  means  a  deliberate  truckling 
by  the  newspapers  to  the  ignorant  tastes  of  the  masses 
when  the  press  fights  a  public  evil  by  attacking,  with  argu- 
ment and  indignation  mingled,  a  man  who  personifies  that 
evil,  instead  of  opposing  the  general  principle  of  that  evil 
with  a  wholly  passionless  intellectualism. 

A  general  fallacy  which  affects  Mr.  Mencken's  whole 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY  69 

article  lies  in  criticising  as  offenses  against  "newspaper 
morals"  those  imperfections  which,  where  they  exist  at  all, 
could  properly  be  criticised  only  under  such  criteria  as 
suggested  by  "Newspaper  Intellectuals,"  or  "Newspapers 
as  the  Exponents  of  Pure  Reason." 

Mr.  Mencken  first  exposes  and  deprecates  the  "aim"  of 
the  newspapers  to  "knock  somebody  on  the  head  every 
day,"  "to  please  the  crowd,  to  give  a  good  show,  by  first 
selecting  a  deserving  victim  and  then  putting  him  mag- 
nificently to  the  torture,"  and  even  to  fight  "constructive 
campaigns  for  good  government  in  exactly  the  same  gothic, 
melodramatic  way." 

Now  "muck-raking"  rather  than  incense-burning  is  not 
a  deliberate  aim  so  much  as  a  spontaneous  instinct  of  the 
average  newspaper.  Nor  is  there  anything  either  mysteri- 
ous or  reprehensible  about  this.  The  public,  of  all  degrees, 
is  more  interested  in  hitting  Wrong  than  in  praising  Right, 
because  fortunately  we  are  still  in  an  optimistic  state  of 
society,  where  Right  is  taken  for  granted  and  Wrong  con-  * 
tains  the  element  of  the  unusual  and  abnormal.  If  the 
day  shall  ever  come  when  papers  will  be  able  to  "expose" 
Right  and  regard  Wrong  as  a  foregone  conclusion,  they  will 
doubtless  quickly  reverse  their  treatment  of  the  two.  In 
an  Ali  Baba's  cave  it  might  be  natural  for  a  paper  to  dis- 
cover some  man's  honesty;  in  a  yoshiwara  it  might  be 
reasonable  for  it  to  expatiate  on  some  woman's  virtue. 
But  while  honesty  and  virtue  and  Tightness  are  assumed 
to  be  the  normal  condition  of  men  and  women  and  things 
in  general,  it  does  not  seem  either  extraordinary  or  cul- 
pable that  people  and  press  should  be  more  interested  in 
the  polemical  than  in  the  platitudinous;  in  blame  than  in 
painting  the  lily;  in  attack  than  in  sending  laudatory  coals 
to  Newcastle.  It  scarcely  needs  remark,  however,  that 
when  the  element  of  surprise  is  introduced  by  some  deed 


70  NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY 

of  exceptional  heroism  or  abnegation  or  inspiration,  the 
newspapers  are  not  slow  in  giving  it  publicity  and  praise. 

Mr.  Mencken  finds  it  deplorable  that  "a  very  definite 
limit  is  set,  not  only  upon  the  people's  capacity  for  grasping 
intellectual  concepts,  but  also  upon  their  capacity  for 
grasping  moral  concepts";  that,  therefore,  it  is  necessary 
"to  visualize  their  cause  in  some  definite  and  defiant  op- 
ponent ...  by  translating  all  arguments  for  a  principle 
into  rage  against  a  man."  Far  be  it  from  me  to  deny  that 
people  and  papers  are  too  prone  to  get  diverted  from  the 
pursuit  of  some  principle  by  acrimonious  personalities 
wholly  ungermane  to  that  principle.  But  the  protest 
against  this  should  not  lead  to  unfair  extremes  in  the  op- 
posite direction.  If  Mr.  Mencken's  ideal  is  a  nation  of 
philosophers  calmly  agreeing  on  the  abstract  desirability 
of  honesty  while  serenely  ignoring  the  specific  picking  of 
their  own  pockets,  we  have  no  ground  for  argument.  But 
until  we  reach  such  a  semi-imbecile  Utopia,  it  would  seem 
to  be  no  reflection  on  "the  people's"  intellectual  or  moral 
concepts  that  they  should  refuse  to  excite  themselves  over 
any  theoretical  wrong  until  their  attention  is  focused  on 
some  practical  manifestation  of  it,  in  the  concrete  acts  of 
some  specific  individual. 

May  I  add,  parenthetically,  that  some  papers  and  many 
acutely  intellectual  gentlemen  find  it  far  more  convenient 
and  comfortable  to  generalize  virtuously  than  to  particu- 
larize virtuously?  Nor  does  it  require  merely  moral  or 
physical  courage  to  reduce  the  safely  general  to  the  dis- 
agreeably personal.  It  requires  no  despicable  amount  of 
intellectual  acumen  as  well. 

Mr.  Mencken  next  proceeds  to  "assume  here,  as  an 
axiom  too  obvious  to  be  argued,  that  the  chief  appeal  of  a 
newspaper  in  all  such  holy  causes  is  not  at  all  to  the  edu- 
cated and  reflective  minority  of  citizens,  but  to  the  igno- 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY  71 

rant  and  unreflective  majority."  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
very  far  from  being  "too  obvious  to  be  argued."  A  great 
many  persons  of  guaranteed  education  are  sadly  destitute 
of  any  reflectiveness  whatsoever,  while  an  appalling  num- 
ber of  "the  ignorant"  have  the  effrontery  to  be  able  to 
reflect  very  efficiently.  This  is  apart  from  the  fact  that 
the  general  intelligence  among  many  of  the  ignorant  is 
matched  only  by  the  abysmal  stupidity  of  many  of  the 
educated. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  decent  paper  makes  its  appeal  on 
public  questions  to  the  numerically  large  body  of  reflec- 
tive "ignorance"  and  to  the  numerically  small  body  of 
reflective  education,  leaving  it  to  the  demagogic  papers, 
which  are  the  exception  at  one  end,  to  inflame  the  unre- 
flective ignorant,  and  to  the  sycophantic  papers  at  the 
other  end  to  pander  to  the  unreflective  educated. 

As  to  Mr.  Mencken's  charge  that  he  knows  of  "no  sub- 
ject, save  perhaps  baseball,  on  which  the  average  American 
newspaper  discourses  with  unfailing  sense  and  understand- 
ing," I  know  of  no  subject  at  all,  even  including  baseball, 
on  which  the  most  exceptionally  gifted  man  in  the  world 
discourses  with  unfailing  sense  and  understanding.  But 
I  do  know  this:  that,  considering  the  immense  range  of 
subjects  which  the  American  paper  is  called  upon  to  dis- 
cuss, and  its  meagre  limits  of  time  in  which  to  prepare  for 
such  discussion,  the  failings  of  that  paper  in  sense  and 
understanding  are  probably  rarer  than  would  be  those 
under  the  same  conditions  of  Mr.  Mencken's  most  fastidi- 
ous selection. 

"But,"  Mr.  Mencken  continues,  "whenever  the  public 
journals  presume  to  illuminate  such  a  matter  as  municipal 
taxation,  for  example,  or  the  extension  of  local  transporta- 
tion facilities,  or  the  punishment  of  public  or  private  crim- 
inals, or  the  control  of  public-service  corporations,  or  the 


72  NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY 

revision  of  city  charters,  the  chief  effect  of  their  effort  is  to 
introduce  into  it  a  host  of  extraneous  issues,  most  of  them 
wholly  emotional,  and  so  they  continue  to  make  it  unin- 
telligible to  all  earnest  seekers  after  truth."  Here  again  it 
is  all  a  matter  of  point  of  view.  If  Mr.  Mencken's  earnest 
seekers  after  truth  wish  to  evolve  ideological  schemes  of 
municipal  taxation,  or  supramundane  extensions  of  trans- 
portation facilities,  or  transcendental  control  of  public- 
service  corporations,  or  academic  revisions  of  city  charters, 
then,  indeed,  the  newspaper  discussions  of  these  questions 
would  be  bewildering  to  these  visionary  workers  in  the 
realms  of  pure  reason.  For  the  newspapers  "presume"  to 
regard  these  questions,  not  as  theoretical  problems,  to  be 
solved  under  theoretical  conditions,  on  theoretical  popu- 
lations, to  theoretical  perfection,  but  as  workable  projects 
for  a  workaday  world,  in  which  the  most  beautiful  abstract 
reasoning  must  stand  the  test  of  flesh-and-blood  condi- 
tions; they  regard  emotional  issues  as  so  far,  indeed,  from 
being  extraneous  that  the  human  nature  of  the  humblest 
men  and  women  must  be  weighed  in  the  balance  against 
the  nicest  syllogisms  of  the  precisest  logic.  And  this  is 
nothing  that  Mr.  Mencken  need  condescend  to  apologize 
for  so  long  as  "newspaper  morals"  are  under  discussion. 
For  it  must  be  obvious  that  the  honest  exposition  and 
analysis  of  public  questions  from  a  human  as  well  as  a 
scientific  point  of  view  is  a  higher  moral  service  to  the  com- 
munity than  an  exclusively  scientific,  wholly  unsympa- 
thetic search  after  truth  by  those  who  regard  populations 
as  mere  subjects  for  the  demonstration  of  principles. 

It  is  precisely  the  honorable  prerogative  of  newspapers 
not  only  to  clarify  but  to  vivify,  to  galvanize  dead  hypoth- 
eses into  living  questions,  to  make  the  educated  and  the 
ignorant  alike  feel  that  public  questions  should  interest 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY  73 

and  stir  all  good  citizens  and  not  merely  engross  social 
philosophers  and  political  theorists. 

But  here  let  me  avoid  joining  Mr.  Mencken  in  the  pit- 
fall of  generalizations,  by  drawing  a  sharp  distinction  be- 
tween the  great  run  of  decent  papers  which  do  honestly 
emotionalize  public  questions  and  the  relatively  few  papers 
which  unscrupulously  hystericalize  these  questions. 

Mr.  Mencken  is  entirely  correct  when  he  admits  that 
this  emotionalizing  brings  these  problems  down  to  a  "man's 
comprehension,  and,  what  is  more  important,  within  the 
range  of  his  active  sympathies."  But  he  again  shows  a 
very  unfortunate  class  arrogance  when  he  identifies  this 
man  as  "  the  man  in  the  street."  If  Mr.  Mencken  searched 
earnestly  enough  after  truth,  he  would  find  this  man  to  be 
about  as  extensively  the  man  at  the  ticker,  the  man  in  the 
motor-car,  the  man  at  the  operating  table,  the  man  in  the 
pulpit.  In  the  same  vein  he  continues  that  the  only  papers 
which  discuss  good  government  unemotionally  "are  dili- 
gently avoided  by  the  raofc."  If  Mr.  Mencken  only  in- 
cluded with  his  proletariat  the  mob  of  stockbrokers  and 
doctors  and  engineers  and  lawyers  and  college  graduates 
generally,  who  refuse  to  read  these  logical  and  unemotional 
discussions,  he  would  unfortunately  be  quite  right.  It 
would  be  a  beautiful  thing  indeed  if  we  had  with  us  to-day 
one  hundred  millions  of  "earnest  seekers  after  truth,"  all 
busily  engaged  in  discussing  "good  government  in  the  ab- 
stract," "logically  and  unemotionally."  If  they  were  only 
thus  dispassionately  busied,  it  is  quite  true  that  things 
would  not  be  as  at  present,  when  "they  are  always  ready 
for  a  man  hunt  and  their  favorite  quarry  is  a  man  of  poli- 
tics. If  no  such  prey  is  at  hand,  they  will  turn  to  wealthy 
debauchees,  to  fallen  Sunday-school  superintendents,  to 
money  barons,  to  white-slave  traders."  In  those  halcyon 
times  the  one  hundred  million  calm  abstractionists  would 

7 


74  NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY 

discuss  the  influence  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  on  bosses, 
or,  failing  this,  the  ultimate  effect  of  wealth  on  eroticism, 
the  obscure  relations  between  proselyting  and  decadence, 
or  the  effect  of  the  white-slave  traffic  on  the  gold  reserve. 

But  in  our  present  unregenerate  epoch  Mr.  Mencken  is 
quite  right  in  holding  that  it  is  generally  the  specific  evils 
of  government  or  society  which  bring  about  reform  waves, 
which  in  turn  crystallize  themselves  into  general  principles. 
It  is  a  shockingly  practical  process,  I  admit ;  but  then,  we 
are  a  shockingly  practical  people,  who  prefer  sordid  results 
to  inspired  theories.  And  at  that  we  are  not  in  such  bad 
company.  For  in  no  country  in  the  world  is  there  such  a 
thing  as  a  "revealed"  civilization.  On  the  contrary,  civil- 
ization has  always  been  for  the  most  part  purely  empirical, 
and  progress  will  ever  remain  so. 

There  is,  therefore,  cause  not  for  shame  but  for  pride 
when  a  newspaper  reveals  some  specific  iniquity,  and  by 
not  merely  expounding  its  isolated  character  to  the  public 
intelligence,  but  also  by  interpreting  its  general  menace  to 
the  public  imagination  and  bringing  home  its  inherent  evil 
to  the  public  conscience,  arouses  that  public  to  social  legis- 
lation, criminal  prosecution,  or  political  reform. 

Mr.  Mencken  next  assaults  once  more  his  unfortunate 
"man  in  the  street"  by  declaring  that  "it  is  always  as  a 
game,  of  course,  that  the  man  in  the  street  views  moral 
endeavor.  .  .  .  His  interest  in  it  is  almost  always  a  sport- 
ing interest."  On  the  contrary,  here  at  last  we  have  a  case 
where  a  class  distinction  can  fairly  be  drawn.  "The  man 
in  the  street"  is  a  naive  man  who  takes  his  melodrama 
seriously,  who  believes  robustly  in  blacks  and  whites  with- 
out subtilizing  them  into  intermediate  shades,  for  whom 
villains  and  heroes  really  exist.  He  is  the  last  person  on 
earth  to  view  the  moral  endeavor  of  a  political  or  social 
campaign  as  a  game.  It  is  the  supercilious  class,  with  its 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY  75 

sophistication  and  attendant  cynicism,  to  whom  such  cam- 
paigns tend  to  take  on  the  aspect  of  sporting  events  and 
games  of  skill. 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  the  details  of  Mr. 
Mencken's  theory  as  to  the  depraved  nature  of  popular 
participation  in  political  reform.  Its  gist  is  contained  in 
his  truly  shocking  statement  that  the  war  on  the  Tweed 
ring  and  its  extirpation  was  to  the  "plain  people"  noth- 
ing but  "sport  royal"!  Any  one  who  can  take  one  of  the 
most  inspiring  civic  victories  in  the  history,  not  alone  of  a 
city,  but  of  a  nation,  and  degrade  the  spirit  that  brought 
it  about  to  the  level  of  the  cockpit  or  the  bull  ring,  sup- 
plies an  argument  that  needs  no  reinforcing  against  his 
prejudices  on  this  whole  subject. 

Mr.  Mencken  justly  deplores  the  reactions  which  follow 
upon  reform  successes,  but  unjustly  concentrates  the 
blame  on  the  fickleness  of  "the  rabble."  This  evil  is  not 
a  matter  of  mob-psychology  but  of  unstable  human  nature, 
high  and  low.  These  revulsions  and  reactions  are  the 
shame,  impartially,  of  all  classes  of  our  communities.  They 
permeate  the  educated  atmosphere  of  fastidious  clubs  as 
extensively  as  they  do  the  ignorant  miasma  of  vulgar 
saloons.  If  they  induce  the  "ignorant  and  unreflective" 
plebeian  to  sit  in  his  shirt-sleeves  with  his  legs  up,  resting 
his  feet,  on  election  day,  instead  of  doing  his  duty  at  the 
polls,  do  they  not  equally  congest  the  golf  links  with  "ear- 
nest seekers  after  truth"  busily  engaged  in  sacrificing  bal- 
lots to  Bogeys? 

I  wholly  agree  with  Mr.  Mencken's  strictures  on  the 
public  morality  which  holds  it  to  be  a  relevant  defense  for 
a  ballot-box  stuffer  "that  he  is  kind  to  his  little  children." 
The  sentimentalism  which  so  frequently  perverts  a  proper 
public  conception  of  public  morality  is  sickening.  But 
here  again  the  indictment  should  be  against  average  human 


76  NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY 

nature,  educated  or  ignorant,  and  not  against  the  "man  in 
the  street "  as  a  class  and  alone.  To  this  man  the  fact  that 
the  ballot-box  stuffer  is  kind  to  his  little  children  may 
carry  more  weight  than  to  the  man  of  education  and  cul- 
ture. To  the  latter  the  fact  that  some  monopoly-breeding, 
law-defying,  legislation-bribing,  railroad-wrecking  gentle- 
man is  kind  to  his  fellow  citizens  by  donating  to  them  pic- 
ture galleries  and  free  libraries  may  carry  more  weight  than 
to  the  former.  Is  not  the  one  just  as  much  as  the  other 
"ready  to  let  feeling  triumph  over  every  idea  of  abstract 
justice"? 

Again,  with  Mr.  Mencken's  prescription  for  making  a 
successful  newspaper  crusade  there  can  be  no  quarrel,  save 
that  here  once  more  he  suggests,  by  referring  to  the  news- 
paper as  a  "mob-master,"  that  these  methods  are  exclu- 
sively applicable  to  the  same  long-suffering  "man  in  the 
street."  These  methods  on  which  Mr.  Mencken  elaborates 
are  the  rather  obvious  ones  used  by  every  lawyer,  clergy- 
man, statesman,  or  publicist  the  world  over  who  has  a 
forensic  fight  to  make  and  win  against  some  public  evil  — 
accusation,  iteration,  cumulation,  and  climax.  If  these 
methods  are  used  by  "mob-masters,"  they  are  equally  used 
by  snob-servants,  and  incidentally  by  the  great  mass  of 
honest  newspapers  which  are  neither  the  one  thing  nor  the 
other. 

At  the  end  of  his  article,  having  set  up  a  man  of  straw 
which  he  found  it  impossible  to  knock  down,  Mr.  Mencken 
patronizingly  pats  it  on  the  back :  — 

"The  newspaper  must  adapt  its  pleading  to  its  client's 
moral  limitations,  just  as  the  trial  lawyer  must  adapt  his 
pleading  to  the  jury's  limitations.  Neither  may  like  the 
job,  but  both  must  face  it  to  gain  a  larger  end.  And  that 
end  is  a  worthy  one  in  the  newspaper's  case  quite  as  often 
as  in  the  lawyer's,  and  perhaps  far  oftener.  The  art  of 


NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY  77 

leading  the  vulgar  in  itself  does  no  discredit  to  its  practi- 
tioner. Lincoln  practised  it  unashamed,  and  so  did  Web- 
ster, Clay,  and  Henry." 

Alas  for  this  well-intentioned  effort  at  amends!  It  is 
impossible  to  agree  with  Mr.  Mencken  even  here  when  he 
praises  press  and  public  with  such  faint  damnation. 

A  decent  newspaper  does  not  and  must  not  adapt  its 
pleadings  to  its  clients'  moral  limitations.  Intellectual 
limitations?  Yes.  It  is  restricted  by  a  line  beyond  which 
intelligence  and  education  alike  would  be  at  sea,  and  which 
only  specialists  and  experts  would  understand.  But  moral 
limitations?  No.  The  paper  in  this  regard  is  less  like  the 
lawyer  and  more  like  the  judge.  A  judge  can  properly 
adapt  his  charge  in  simplicity  of  form  to  the  intellectual 
limitations  of  the  jury,  but  it  will  scarcely  be  contended 
that  he  may  adapt  his  charge  in  its  substance  to  the  moral 
limitations  of  the  jury.  No  more  can  any  self-respecting 
paper  palter  with  what  it  believes  to  be  the  right  and  the 
truth  because  of  any  moral  limitations  in  its  constituency. 
Demagogic  papers  may  do  it.  Class-catering  papers  may 
do  it.  But  the  decent  press  which  lies  between  does  not 
thus  stultify  itself. 

And  now  to  Mr.  Mencken's  condescending  conclusion: — 

"Our  most  serious  problems,  it  must  be  plain,  have  been 
solved  orgiastically  and  to  the  tune  of  deafening  newspa- 
per urging  and  clamor.  .  .  .  But  is  the  net  result  evil? 
...  I  doubt  it.  ...  The  way  of  ethical  progress  is  not 
straight.  .  .  .  But  if  we  thus  move  onward  and  up- 
ward by  leaps  and  bounces,  it  is  certainly  better  than  not 
moving  at  all.  Each  time,  perhaps,  we  slip  back,  but  each 
time  we  stop  at  a  higher  level." 

Why,  then,  sweepingly  reflect  on  the  morals  of  the  press, 
if  by  humanizing  abstract  principles,  by  emotionalizing 
academic  doctrines,  by  personifying  general  theories,  it 


78  NEWSPAPER  MORALS:  A  REPLY 

has  accomplished  this  progress?  Granted  that  in  the  heat 
of  battle  it  fails  to  handle  the  cold  conceptions  of  austere 
philosophers  with  proper  scientific  etiquette.  Granted 
that  it  makes  blunders  in  technical  statements  which  to 
the  preciosity  of  specialists  seem  inexcusable.  Granted 
that  it  mixes  its  science  and  its  sentiment  in  a  manner  to 
shock  the  gentlemen  of  disembodied  intellects.  Granted 
that  the  press  has  many  more  such  intellectual  peccadil- 
loes on  its  conscience. 

But  if  the  press  does  these  things  honestly,  it  does  them 
morally,  and  does  not  need  to  excuse  them  by  their  results, 
even  though  these  results  are  in  very  truth  infinitely  more 
precious  to  humanity  than  could  be  those  obtained  by  the 
chill  endeavors  of  what  Mr.  Mencken  himself,  with  the 
perfect  accuracy  of  would-be  irony,  describes  as  "a  Ca- 
morra  of  Utopian  and  dehumanized  reformers." 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS 

BY   EDWARD   ALSWORTH   ROSS 


MOST  of  the  criticism  launched  at  our  daily  newspapers 
hits  the  wrong  party.  Granted  that  they  sensationalize 
vice  and  crime,  "play  up"  trivialities,  exploit  the  private 
affairs  of  prominent  people,  embroider  facts,  and  offend  good 
taste  with  screech,  blare,  and  color.  All  this  may  be  only 
the  means  of  meeting  the  demand,  of  "giving  the  public 
what  it  wants."  The  newspaper  cannot  be  expected  to 
remain  dignified  and  serious  now  that  it  caters  to  the  com- 
mon millions,  instead  of,  as  formerly,  to  the  professional 
and  business  classes.  To  interest  errand-boy  and  factory- 
girl  and  raw  immigrant,  it  had  to  become  spicy,  amusing, 
emotional,  and  chromatic.  For  these,  blame,  then,  the 
American  people. 

There  is  just  one  deadly,  damning  count  against  the 
daily  newspaper  as  it  is  coming  to  be,  namely,  it  does  not 
give  the  news. 

For  all  its  pretensions,  many  a  daily  newspaper  is  not 
" giving  the  public  what  it  wants."  In  spite  of  these  widely 
trumpeted  prodigies  of  costly  journalistic  "enterprise," 
these  ferreting  reporters  and  hurrying  correspondents, 
these  leased  cables  and  special  trains,  news,  good  "live" 
news,  "red-hot  stuff,"  is  deliberately  being  suppressed  or 
distorted.  This  occurs  oftener  now  than  formerly,  and  bids 
fair  to  occur  yet  oftener  in  the  future. 

And  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  aspiration  of  the 
press  has  been  upward.  Venality  has  waned.  Better  and 
better  men  have  been  drawn  into  journalism,  and  they 


80      THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS 

have  wrought  under  more  self -restraint.  The  time  when 
it  could  be  said,  as  it  was  said  of  the  Reverend  Dr.  Dodd, 
that  one  had  "descended  so  low  as  to  become  editor  of  a 
newspaper,"  seems  as  remote  as  the  Ice  Age.  The  editor 
who  uses  his  paper  to  air  his  prejudices,  satisfy  his  grudges, 
and  serve  his  private  ambitions,  is  going  out.  Sobered  by 
a  growing  realization  of  their  social  function,  newspaper 
men  have  come  under  a  sense  of  responsibility.  Not  long 
ago  it  seemed  as  if  a  professional  spirit  and  a  professional 
ethics  were  about  to  inspire  the  newspaper  world;  and  to 
this  end  courses  and  schools  of  journalism  were  established, 
with  high  hopes.  The  arrest  of  this  promising  movement 
explains  why  nine  out  of  ten  newspaper  men  of  fifteen 
years'  experience  are  cynics. 

As  usual,  no  one  is  to  blame.  The  apostasy  of  the  daily 
press  is  caused  by  three  economic  developments  in  the 
field  of  newspaper  publishing. 


ii 

In  the  first  place,  the  great  city  daily  has  become  a 
blanket  sheet  with  elaborate  presswork,  printed  in  mam- 
moth editions  that  must  be  turned  out  in  the  least  time. 
The  necessary  plant  is  so  costly,  and  the  Associated  Press 
franchise  is  so  expensive,  that  the  daily  newspaper  in  the 
big  city  has  become  a  capitalistic  enterprise.  To-day  a 
million  dollars  will  not  begin  to  outfit  a  metropolitan  news- 
paper. The  editor  is  no  longer  the  owner,  for  he  has  not, 
and  cannot  command,  the  capital  needed  to  start  it  or  buy 
it.  The  editor  of  the  type  of  Greeley,  Dana,  Medill,  Story, 
Halstead,  and  Raymond,  who  owns  his  paper  and  makes 
it  his  astral  body,  the  projection  of  his  character  and  ideals, 
is  rare.  Perhaps  Mr.  Watterson  and  Mr.  Nelson  [the  late 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS      81 

William  R.  Nelson  of  the  Kansas  City  Star]  are  the  best 
recent  representatives  of  the  type. 

More  and  more  the  owner  of  the  big  daily  is  a  business 
man  who  finds  it  hard  to  see  why  he  should  run  his  prop- 
erty on  different  lines  from  the  hotel  proprietor,  the  vaude- 
ville manager,  or  the  owner  of  an  amusement  park.  The 
editors  are  hired  men,  and  they  may  put  into  the  paper  no 
more  of  their  conscience  and  ideals  than  comports  with 
getting  the  biggest  return  from  the  investment.  Of  course, 
the  old-time  editor  who  owned  his  paper  tried  to  make 
money, —  no  sin  that !  —  but  just  as  to-day  the  author, 
the  lecturer,  or  the  scholar  tries  to  make  money,  namely, 
within  the  limitations  imposed  by  his  principles  and  his 
professional  standards.  But,  now  that  the  provider  of  the 
newspaper  capital  hires  the  editor  instead  of  the  editor 
hiring  the  newspaper  capital,  the  paper  is  likelier  to  be  run 
as  a  money-maker  pure  and  simple  —  a  factory  where  ink 
and  brains  are  so  applied  to  white  paper  as  to  turn  out 
the  largest  possible  marketable  product.  The  capitalist- 
owner  means  no  harm,  but  he  is  not  bothered  by  the  stand- 
ards that  hamper  the  editor-owner.  He  follows  a  few  sim- 
ple maxims  that  work  out  well  enough  in  selling  shoes  or 
cigars  or  sheet-music.  "Give  people  what  they  want,  not 
what  you  want."  "Back  nothing  that  will  be  unpopular." 
"Run  the  concern  for  all  it  is  worth." 

This  drifting  of  ultimate  control  into  the  hands  of  men 
with  business  motives  is  what  is  known  as  "  the  commer- 
cialization of  the  press." 

The  significance  of  it  is  apparent  when  you  consider  the 
second  economic  development,  namely,  the  growth  of  news- 
paper advertising.  The  dissemination  of  news  and  the 
purveying  of  publicity  are  two  essentially  distinct  func- 
tions, which,  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  are  carried  on  by 
the  same  agency.  The  one  appeals  to  subscribers,  the  other 


82      THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS 

to  advertisers.  The  one  calls  for  good  faith,  the  other  does 
not.  The  one  is  the  corner-stone  of  liberty  and  democracy, 
the  other  a  convenience  of  commerce.  Now,  the  purvey- 
ing of  publicity  is  becoming  the  main  concern  of  the  news- 
paper, and  threatens  to  throw  quite  into  the  shade  the 
communication  of  news  or  opinions.  Every  year  the  sale 
of  advertising  yields  a  larger  proportion  of  the  total  re- 
ceipts, and  the  subscribers  furnish  a  smaller  proportion. 
Thirty  years  ago,  advertising  yielded  less  than  half  of  the 
earnings  of  the  daily  newspapers.  To-day,  it  yields  at 
least  two  thirds.  In  the  larger  dailies  the  receipts  from 
advertisers  are  several  times  the  receipts  from  the  readers, 
in  some  cases  constituting  ninety  per  cent  of  the  total 
revenues.  As  the  newspaper  expands  to  eight,  twelve,  and 
sixteen  pages,  while  the  price  sinks  to  three  cents,  two 
cents,  one  cent,  the  time  comes  when  the  advertisers  sup- 
port the  newspaper.  The  readers  are  there  to  read,  not  to 
provide  funds.  "He  who  pays  the  piper  calls  the  tune." 
When  news  columns  and  editorial  page  are  a  mere  incident 
in  the  profitable  sale  of  mercantile  publicity,  it  is  strictly 
"businesslike"  to  let  the  big  advertisers  censor  both. 

Of  course,  you  must  not  let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag,  or 
you  will  lose  readers,  and  thereupon  advertising.  As  the 
publicity  expert,  Deweese,  frankly  puts  it,  "The  reader 
must  be  flimflammed  with  the  idea  that  the  publisher  is 
really  publishing  the  newspaper  or  magazine  for  him." 
The  wise  owner  will  "maintain  the  beautiful  and  impress- 
ive bluff  of  running  a  journal  to  influence  public  opinion, 
to  purify  politics,  to  elevate  public  morals,  etc."  In  the 
last  analysis,  then,  the  smothering  of  facts  in  deference  to 
the  advertiser  finds  a  limit  in  the  intelligence  and  alert- 
ness of  the  reading  public.  Handled  as  "a  commercial 
proposition,"  the  newspaper  dares  not  suppress  such  news 
beyond  a  certain  point,  and  it  can  always  proudly  point  to 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS      83 

the  unsuppressed  news  as  proof  of  its  independence  and 
public  spirit. 

The  immunity  enjoyed  by  the  big  advertiser  becomes 
more  serious  as  more  kinds  of  business  resort  to  advertis- 
ing. Formerly,  readers  who  understood  why  accidents  and 
labor  troubles  never  occur  in  department  stores,  why 
dramatic  criticisms  are  so  lenient,  and  the  reviews  of  books 
from  the  publishers  who  advertise  are  so  good-natured, 
could  still  expect  from  their  journal  an  ungloved  freedom 
in  dealing  with  gas,  electric,  railroad,  and  banking  com- 
panies. But  now  the  gas  people  advertise,  "Cook  with 
gas,"  the  electric  people  urge  you  to  put  your  sewing-ma- 
chine on  their  current,  and  the  railroads  spill  oceans  of  ink 
to  attract  settlers  or  tourists.  The  banks  and  trust  com- 
panies are  buyers  of  space,  investment  advertising  has 
sprung  up  like  Jonah's  gourd,  and  telephone  and  traction 
companies  are  being  drawn  into  the  vortex  of  competitive 
publicity.  Presently,  in  the  news-columns  of  the  sheet 
that  steers  by  the  cash-register,  every  concern  that  has 
favors  to  seek,  duties  to  dodge,  or  regulations  to  evade, 
will  be  able  to  press  the  soft  pedal. 

A  third  development  is  the  subordination  of  newspapers 
to  other  enterprises.  After  a  newspaper  becomes  a  piece 
of  paying  property,  detachable  from  the  editor's  person- 
ality, which  may  be  bought  and  sold  like  a  hotel  or  mill,  it 
may  come  into  the  hands  of  those  who  will  hold  it  in  bond- 
age to  other  and  bigger  investments.  The  magnate-owner 
may  find  it  to  his  advantage  not  to  run  it  as  a  newspaper 
pure  and  simple,  but  to  make  it  —  on  the  sly  —  an  instru- 
ment for  coloring  certain  kinds  of  news,  diffusing  certain 
misinformation,  or  fostering  certain  impressions  or  preju- 
dices in  its  clientele.  In  a  word,  he  may  shape  its  policy 
by  non- journalistic  considerations.  By  making  his  paper 
help  his  other  schemes,  or  further  his  political  or  social 


84      THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS 

ambitions,  he  will  hurt  it  as  a  money-maker,  no  doubt,  but 
he  may  contrive  to  fool  enough  of  the  people  enough  of  the 
time.  Aside  from  such  thraldom,  newspapers  are  subject 
to  the  tendency  of  diverse  businesses  to  become  tied  to- 
gether by  the  cross-investments  of  their  owners.  But 
naturally,  when  the  shares  of  a  newspaper  lie  in  the  safe- 
deposit  box  cheek  by  jowl  with  gas,  telephone,  and  pipe- 
line stock,  a  tenderness  for  these  collateral  interests  is 
likely  to  affect  the  news  columns. 


in 

That  in  consequence  of  its  commercialization,  and  its  fre- 
quent subjection  to  outside  interests,  the  daily  newspaper 
is  constantly  suppressing  important  news,  will  appear  from 
the  instances  that  follow.  They  are  hardly  a  third  of  the 
material  that  has  come  to  the  writer's  attention. 

A  prominent  Philadelphia  clothier  visiting  New  York 
was  caught  perverting  boys,  and  cut  his  throat.  His  firm 
being  a  heavy  advertiser,  not  a  single  paper  in  his  home 
city  mentioned  the  tragedy.  One  New  York  paper  took 
advantage  of  the  situation  by  sending  over  an  extra  edi- 
tion containing  the  story.  The  firm  in  question  has  a  large 
branch  in  a  Western  city.  There  too  the  local  press  was 
silent,  and  the  opening  was  seized  by  a  Chicago  paper. 

In  this  same  Western  city  the  vice-president  of  this  firm 
was  indicted  for  bribing  an  alderman  to  secure  the  passage 
of  an  ordinance  authorizing  the  firm  to  bridge  an  alley 
separating  two  of  its  buildings.  Representatives  of  the 
firm  requested  the  newspapers  in  which  it  advertised  to 
ignore  the  trial.  Accordingly  the  five  English  papers  pub- 
lished no  account  of  the  trial,  which  lasted  a  week  and  dis- 
closed highly  sensational  matter.  Only  the  German  papers 
sent  reporters  to  the  trial  and  published  the  proceedings. 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS      85 

In  a  great  jobbing  centre,  one  of  the  most  prominent 
cases  of  the  United  States  District  Attorney  was  the  prose- 
cution of  certain  firms  for  misbranding  goods.  The  facts 
brought  out  appeared  in  the  press  of  the  smaller  centres, 
but  not  a  word  was  printed  in  the  local  papers.  In  another 
centre,  four  firms  were  fined  for  selling  potted  cheese 
which  had  been  treated  with  preservatives.  The  local 
newspapers  stated  the  facts,  but  withheld  the  names  of  the 
firms  —  a  consideration  they  are  not  likely  to  show  to  the 
ordinary  culprit. 

In  a  trial  in  a  great  city  it  was  brought  out  by  sworn 
testimony  that,  during  a  recent  labor  struggle  which  in- 
volved teamsters  on  the  one  hand  and  the  department 
stores  and  the  mail-order  houses  on  the  other,  the  employ- 
ers had  plotted  to  provoke  the  strikers  to  violence  by  send- 
ing a  long  line  of  strike-breaking  wagons  out  of  their  way 
to  pass  a  lot  on  which  the  strikers  were  meeting.  These 
wagons  were  the  bait  to  a  trap,  for  a  strong  force  of  police- 
men was  held  in  readiness  in  the  vicinity,  and  the  governor 
of  the  state  was  at  the  telephone  ready  to  call  out  the 
militia  if  a  riot  broke  out.  Fortunately,  the  strikers  re- 
strained themselves,  and  the  trap  was  not  sprung.  It  is 
easy  to  imagine  the  headlines  that  would  have  been  used 
if  labor  had  been  found  in  so  diabolical  a  plot.  Yet  the 
newspapers  unanimously  refused  to  print  this  testimony. 

In  the  same  city,  during  a  strike  of  the  elevator  men  in 
the  large  stores,  the  business  agent  of  the  elevator-starters' 
union  was  beaten  to  death,  in  an  alley  behind  a  certain 
emporium,  by  a  "strong-arm"  man  hired  by  that  firm. 
The  story,  supported  by  affidavits,  was  given  by  a  respon- 
sible lawyer  to  three  newspaper  men,  each  of  whom  ac- 
cepted it  as  true  and  promised  to  print  it.  The  account 
never  appeared. 

In  another  city  the  sales-girls  in  the  big  shops  had  to 


86   THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS 

sign  an  exceedingly  mean  and  oppressive  contract  which, 
if  generally  known,  would  have  made  the  firms  odious  to 
the  public.  A  prominent  social  worker  carried  these  con- 
tracts, and  evidence  as  to  the  bad  conditions  that  had 
become  established  under  them,  to  every  newspaper  in  the 
city.  Not  one  would  print  a  line  on  the  subject. 

On  the  outbreak  of  a  justifiable  street-car  strike  the 
newspapers  were  disposed  to  treat  it  in  a  sympathetic  way. 
Suddenly  they  veered,  and  became  unanimously  hostile  to 
the  strikers.  Inquiry  showed  that  the  big  merchants  had 
threatened  to  withdraw  their  advertisements  unless  the 
newspapers  changed  their  attitude. 

In  the  summer  of  1908  disastrous  fires  raged  in  the 
northern  Lake  country,  and  great  areas  of  standing  timber 
were  destroyed.  A  prominent  organ  of  the  lumber  indus- 
try belittled  the  losses  and  printed  reassuring  statements 
from  lumbermen  who  were  at  the  very  moment  calling 
upon  the  state  for  a  fire  patrol.  When  taxed  with  the 
deceit,  the  organ  pleaded  its  obligation  to  support  the 
market  for  the  bonds  which  the  lumber  companies  of  the 
Lake  region  had  been  advertising  in  its  columns. 

On  account  of  agitating  for  teachers'  pensions,  a  teacher 
was  summarily  dismissed  by  a  corrupt  school  board,  in  vio- 
lation of  their  own  published  rule  regarding  tenure.  An 
influential  newspaper  published  the  facts  of  school-board 
grafting  brought  out  in  the  teacher's  suit  for  reinstatement 
until,  through  his  club  affiliations,  a  big  merchant  was  in- 
duced to  threaten  the  paper  with  the  withdrawal  of  his 
advertising.  No  further  reports  of  the  revelations  ap- 
peared. 

During  labor  disputes  the  facts  are  usually  distorted  to 
the  injury  of  labor.  In  one  case,  strikers  held  a  meeting  on 
a  vacant  lot  enclosed  by  a  newly-erected  billboard.  Forth- 
with appeared,  in  a  yellow  journal  professing  warm  friend- 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS      87 

ship  for  labor,  a  front-page  cut  of  the  billboard  and  a  lurid 
story  of  how  the  strikers  had  built  a  "stockade,"  behind 
which  they  intended  to  bid  defiance  to  the  bluecoats.  It 
is  not  surprising  that,  when  the  van  bringing  these  lying 
sheets  appeared  in  their  quarter  of  the  city,  the  libeled 
men  overturned  it. 

During  the  struggle  of  carriage-drivers  for  a  six-day 
week,  certain  great  dailies  lent  themselves  to  a  concerted 
effort  of  the  liverymen  to  win  public  sympathy  by  making 
it  appear  that  the  strikers  were  interfering  with  funerals. 
One  paper  falsely  stated  that  a  strong  force  of  police  was 
being  held  in  reserve  in  case  of  "riots,"  and  that  police- 
men would  ride  beside  the  non-union  drivers  of  hearses. 
Another,  under  the  misleading  headline,  "Two  Funerals 
stopped  by  Striking  Cabmen,"  described  harmless  collo- 
quies between  hearse-drivers  and  pickets.  This  was  fol- 
lowed up  with  a  solemn  editorial,  "May  a  Man  go  to  his 
Long  Rest  in  Peace?"  although,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
strikers  had  no  intention  of  interfering  with  funerals. 

The  lying  headline  is  a  favorite  device  for  misleading  the 
reader.  One  sheet  prints  on  its  front  page  a  huge  "scare" 
headline,  "  'Hang  Hay  wood  and  a  Million  Men  will  march 
in  Revenge/  says  Darrow."  The  few  readers  whose  glance 
fell  from  the  incendiary  headline  to  the  dispatch  below  it 
found  only  the  following:  "Mr.  Darrow,  in  closing  the  ar- 
gument, said  that  'if  the  jury  hangs  Bill  Hay  wood,  one 
million  willing  hands  will  seize  the  banner  of  liberty  by 
the  open  grave,  and  bear  it  on  to  victory.'  '  In  the  same 
style,  a  dispatch  telling  of  the  death  of  an  English  police- 
man, from  injuries  received  during  a  riot  precipitated  by 
suffragettes  attempting  to  enter  a  hall  during  a  political 
meeting,  is  headed,  "Suffragettes  kill  Policeman!" 

The  alacrity  with  which  many  dailies  serve  as  mouth- 
pieces of  the  financial  powers  came  out  very  clearly  during 


88      THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS 

the  recent  industrial  depression.  The  owner  of  one  leading 
newspaper  called  his  reporters  together  and  said  in  effect, 
"  Boys,  the  first  of  you  who  turns  in  a  story  of  a  lay-off  or 
a  shut-down  gets  the  sack."  Early  in  the  depression  the 
newspapers  teemed  with  glowing  accounts  of  the  resump- 
tion of  steel  mills  and  the  revival  of  business,  all  baseless. 
After  harvest  time  they  began  to  cheep,  "Prosperity," 
"Bumper  Crops,"  "Farmers  buying  Automobiles."  In 
cities  where  banks  and  employers  offered  clearing-house 
certificates  instead  of  cash,  the  press  usually  printed  fairy 
tales  of  the  enthusiasm  with  which  these  makeshifts  were 
taken  by  depositors  and  workingmen.  The  numbers  and 
sufferings  of  the  unemployed  were  ruthlessly  concealed 
from  the  reading  public.  A  mass  meeting  of  men  out  of 
work  was  represented  as  "anarchistic"  or  "instigated  by 
the  socialists  for  political  effect."  In  one  daily  appeared 
a  dispatch  under  the  heading  "Five  Thousand  Jobs  Of- 
fered; only  Ten  apply."  It  stated  that  the  Commissioner 
of  Public  Works  of  Detroit,  misled  by  reports  of  dire  dis- 
tress, set  afoot  a  public  work  which  called  for  five  thousand 
men.  Only  ten  men  applied  for  work,  and  all  these  ex- 
pected to  be  bosses.  Correspondence  with  the  official 
established  the  fact  that  the  number  of  jobs  offered  was 
five  hundred,  and  that  three  thousand  men  applied  for 
them! 

IV 

On  the  desk  of  every  editor  and  sub-editor  of  a  news- 
paper run  by  a  capitalist  promoter  now  [1910]  under  prison 
sentence  lay  a  list  of  sixteen  corporations  in  which  the 
owner  was  interested.  This  was  to  remind  them  not  to 
print  anything  damaging  to  these  concerns.  In  the  office 
these  corporations  were  jocularly  referred  to  as  "sacred 
cows." 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS      89 

Nearly  every  form  of  privilege  is  found  in  the  herd  of 
"sacred  cows"  venerated  by  the  daily  press. 

The  railroad  company  is  a  "sacred  cow."  At  a  hearing 
before  a  state  railroad  commission,  the  attorney  of  a  ship- 
pers' association  got  an  eminent  magnate  into  the  witness 
chair,  with  the  intention  of  wringing  from  him  the  truth 
regarding  the  political  expenditures  of  his  railroad.  At 
this  point  the  commission,  an  abject  creature  of  the  rail- 
roads, arbitrarily  excluded  the  daring  attorney  from  the 
case.  The  memorable  excoriation  which  that  attorney 
gave  the  commission  to  its  face  was  made  to  appear  in  the 
papers  as  the  cause  instead  of  the  consequence  of  this  exclu- 
sion. Subsequently,  when  the  attorney  filed  charges  with 
the  governor  against  the  commission,  one  editor  wrote  an 
editorial  stating  the  facts  and  criticising  the  commission- 
ers. The  editorial  was  suppressed  after  it  was  in  type. 

The  public-service  company  is  a  "sacred  cow."  In  a 
city  of  the  Southwest,  last  summer  [1909],  while  houses 
were  burning  from  lack  of  water  for  the  fire  hose,  a  lumber 
company  offered  to  supply  the  firemen  with  water.  The 
water  company  replied  that  they  had  "  sufficient."  Neither 
this  nor  other  damaging  information  concerning  the  com- 
pany's conduct  got  into  the  columns  of  the  local  press.  A 
yellow  journal  conspicuous  in  the  fight  for  cheaper  gas 
by  its  ferocious  onslaughts  on  the  "gas  trust,"  suddenly 
ceased  its  attack.  Soon  it  began  to  carry  a  full-page  "  Cook 
with  gas"  advertisement.  The  cow  had  found  the  en- 
trance to  the  sacred  fold. 

Traction  is  a  "sacred  cow."  The  truth  about  Cleveland's 
fight  for  the  three-cent  fare  has  been  widely  suppressed. 
For  instance,  while  Mayor  Johnson  was  superintend- 
ing the  removal  of  the  tracks  of  a  defunct  street  railway, 
he  was  served  with  a  court  order  enjoining  him  from 
tearing  up  the  rails.  As  the  injunction  was  not  indorsed, 

8 


90      THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS 

as  by  law  it  should  be,  he  thought  it  was  an  ordinary  com- 
munication, and  put  it  in  his  pocket  to  examine  later.  The 
next  day  he  was  summoned  to  show  reason  why  he  should 
not  be  found  in  contempt  of  court.  When  the  facts  came 
out,  he  was,  of  course,  discharged.  An  examination  of  the 
seven  leading  dailies  of  the  country  shows  that  a  dispatch 
was  sent  out  from  Cleveland  stating  that  Mayor  Johnson, 
after  acknowledging  service,  pocketed  the  injunction,  and 
ordered  his  men  to  proceed  with  their  work.  In  the  news- 
paper offices  this  dispatch  was  then  embroidered.  One 
paper  said  the  mayor  told  his  men  to  go  ahead  and  ignore 
the  injunction.  Another  had  the  mayor  intimating  in  ad- 
vance that  he  would  not  obey  an  order  if  one  were  issued. 
A  third  invented  a  conversation  in  which  the  mayor  and 
his  superintendent  made  merry  over  the  injunction.  Not 
one  of  the  seven  journals  reported  the  mayor's  complete 
exoneration  later. 

The  tax  system  is  a  "sacred  cow."  During  a  banquet 
of  two  hundred  single-taxers,  at  the  conclusion  of  their 
state  conference,  a  man  fell  in  a  fit.  Reporters  saw  the 
trifling  incident,  yet  the  morning  papers,  under  big  head- 
lines, "Many  Poisoned  at  Single-Tax  Banquet,"  told  in 
detail  how  a  large  number  of  banqueters  had  been  pto- 
maine-poisoned. The  conference  had  formulated  a  single- 
tax  amendment  to  the  state  constitution,  which  they  in- 
tended to  present  to  the  people  for  signature  under  the 
new  Initiative  law.  One  paper  gave  a  line  and  a  half  to 
this  most  significant  action.  No  other  paper  noticed  it. 

The  party  system  is  a  "sacred  cow."  When  a  county 
district  court  declared  that  the  Initiative  and  Referendum 
amendment  to  the  Oregon  constitution  was  invalid,  the 
item  was  spread  broadcast.  But  when  later  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Oregon  reversed  that  decision,  the  fact  was  too 
trivial  to  be  put  on  the  wires. 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS      91 

The  "man  higher  up"  is  a  "sacred  cow."  In  reporting 
Prosecutor  Heney's  argument  in  the  Calhoun  case,  the 
leading  San  Francisco  paper  omitted  everything  on  the 
guilt  of  Calhoun  and  made  conspicuous  certain  statements 
of  Mr.  Heney  with  reference  to  himself,  with  intent  to  make 
it  appear  that  his  argument  was  but  a  vindication  of  him- 
self, and  that  he  made  no  points  against  the  accused.  The 
argument  for  the  defense  was  printed  in  full,  the  "points" 
being  neatly  displayed  in  large  type  at  proper  intervals. 
At  a  crisis  in  this  prosecution  a  Washington  dispatch 
quoted  the  chairman  of  the  Appropriations  Committee  as 
stating  in  the  House  that  "Mr.  Heney  received  during 
1908  $23,000,  for  which  he  performed  no  service  whatever 
for  the  Government."  It  was  some  hours  before  the  report 
was  corrected  by  adding  Mr.  Tawney's  concluding  words, 
"during  that  year." 

In  view  of  their  suppression  and  misrepresentation  of 
vital  truth,  the  big  daily  papers,  broadly  speaking,  must 
be  counted  as  allies  of  those  whom  —  as  Editor  Dana 
reverently  put  it  —  "  God  has  endowed  with  a  genius  for 
saving,  for  getting  rich,  for  bringing  wealth  together,  for 
accumulating  and  concentrating  money."  In  rallying  to 
the  side  of  the  people  they  are  slower  than  the  weeklies, 
the  magazines,  the  pulpit,  the  platform,  the  bar,  the  lit- 
erati, the  intellectuals,  the  social  settlements,  and  the  uni- 
versities. 

Now  and  then,  to  be  sure,  in  some  betrayed  and  mis- 
governed city,  a  man  of  force  takes  some  little  sheet,  prints 
all  the  news,  ventilates  the  local  situation,  arouses  the 
community,  builds  up  a  huge  circulation,  and  proves  that 
truth- telling  still  pays.  But  such  exploits  do  not  counter- 
act the  economic  developments  which  have  brought  on  the 
glacial  epoch  in  journalism.  Note  what  happens  later  to 
such  a  newspaper.  It  is  now  a  valuable  property,  and  as 


92      THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS 

such  it  will  be  treated.  The  editor  need  not  repeat  the 
bold  strokes  that  won  public  confidence;  he  has  only  to 
avoid  anything  that  would  forfeit  it.  Unconsciously  he 
becomes,  perhaps,  less  a  newspaper  man,  more  a  business 
man.  He  may  make  investments  which  muzzle  his  paper 
here,  form  social  connections  which  silence  it  there.  He 
may  tire  of  fighting  and  want  to  "cash  in."  In  any  case, 
when  his  newspaper  falls  into  the  hands  of  others,  it  will 
be  run  as  a  business,  and  not  as  a  crusade. 


What  can  be  done  about  the  suppression  of  news?  At 
least,  we  can  refrain  from  arraigning  and  preaching.  To 
urge  the  editor,  under  the  thumb  of  the  advertiser  or  of  the 
owner,  to  be  more  independent,  is  to  invite  him  to  remove 
himself  from  his  profession.  As  for  the  capitalist-owner, 
to  exhort  him  to  run  his  newspaper  in  the  interests  of  truth 
and  progress  is  about  as  reasonable  as  to  exhort  the  mill- 
owner  to  work  his  property  for  the  public  good  instead  of 
for  his  private  benefit. 

What  is  needed  is  a  broad  new  avenue  to  the  public 
mind.  Already  smothered  facts  are  cutting  little  channels 
for  themselves.  The  immense  vogue  of  the  "  muck-raking  " 
magazines  is  due  to  their  being  vehicles  for  suppressed 
news.  Non-partisan  leaders  are  meeting  with  cheering 
response  when  they  found  weeklies  in  order  to  reach  their 
natural  following.  The  Socialist  Party  supports  two  dai- 
lies, less  to  spread  their  ideas  than  to  print  what  the  cap- 
italistic dailies  would  stifle.  Civic  associations,  municipal 
voters'  leagues,  and  legislative  voters'  leagues,  are  circu- 
lating tons  of  leaflets  and  bulletins  full  of  suppressed  facts. 
Within  a  year  [1909-10]  five  cities  have,  with  the  tax- 
payers' money,  started  journals  to  acquaint  the  citizens 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS      93 


7 


with  municipal  happenings  and  affairs.  In  many  cities 
have  sprung  up  private  non-partisan  weeklies  to  report 
civic  information.  Moreover,  the  spoken  word  is  once 
more  a  power.  The  demand  for  lecturers  and  speakers  is 
insatiable,  and  the  platform  bids  fair  to  recover  its  old 
prestige.  The  smotherers  are  dismayed  by  the  growth  of 
the  Chautauqua  circuit.  Congressional  speeches  give  vent 
to  boycotted  truth,  and  circulate  widely  under  the  frank- 
ing privilege.  City  clubs  and  Saturday  lunch  clubs  are 
formed  to  listen  to  facts  and  ideas  tabooed  by  the  daily 
press.  More  is  made  of  public  hearings  before  committees 
of  councilmen  or  legislators. 

When  all  is  said,  however,  the  defection  of  the  daily  press 
has  been  a  staggering  blow  to  democracy. 

Many  insist  that  the  public  is  able  to  recognize  and  pay 
for  the  truth.  "Trust  the  public"  and  in  the  end  merit 
will  be  rewarded.  Time  and  again  men  have  sunk  money 
in  starting  an  honest  and  outspoken  sheet,  confident  that"* 
soon  the  public  would  rally  to  its  support.  But  such  ho 
are  doomed  to  disappointment.  The  editor  who  turns 
away  bad  advertising  or  defies  his  big  patrons  cannot  lay 
his  copy  on  the  subscriber's  doorstep  for  as  little  money  as 
the  editor  who  purveys  publicity  for  all  it  is  worth;  and 
the  masses  will  not  pay  three  cents  when  another  paper 
that  "looks  just  as  good"  can  be  had  for  a  cent.  In  a 
word,  the  art  of  simulating  honesty  and  independence  has 
outrun  the  insight  of  the  average  reader. 

To  conclude  that  the  people  are  not  able  to  recognize 
and  pay  for  the  truth  about  current  happenings  simply 
puts  the  dissemination  of  news  in  a  class  with  other  mo- 
mentous social  services.  Because  people  fail  to  recognize 
and  pay  for  good  books,  endowed  libraries  stud  the  land. 
Because  they  fail  to  recognize  and  pay  for  good  instruction, 
education  is  provided  free  or  at  part  cost.  Just  as  the 


94      THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS 

moment  came  when  it  was  seen  that  private  schools,  loan 
libraries,  commercial  parks,  baths,  gymnasia,  athletic 
grounds,  and  playgrounds  would  not  answer,  so  the  mo- 
ment is  here  for  recognizing  that  the  commercial  news- 
medium  does  not  adequately  meet  the  needs  of  democratic 
citizenship. 

Endowment  is  necessary,  and,  since  we  are  not  yet  wise 
enough  to  run  a  public-owned  daily  newspaper,  the  funds 
must  come  from  private  sources.  In  view  of  the  fact  that 
in  fifteen  years  large  donations  aggregating  more  than  a 
thousand  million  of  dollars  have  been  made  for  public  pur- 
poses in  this  country,  it  is  safe  to  predict  that,  if  the  use- 
fulness of  a  non-commercial  newspaper  be  demonstrated, 
funds  will  be  forthcoming.  In  the  cities,  where  the  secret 
control  of  the  channels  of  publicity  is  easiest,  there  are 
likely  to  be  founded  financially  independent  newspapers, 
the  gift  of  public-spirited  men  of  wealth. 

The  ultimate  control  of  such  a  foundation  constitutes 
a  problem.  A  newspaper  free  to  ignore  the  threats  of  big 
advertisers  or  powerful  interests,  one  not  to  be  bought, 
bullied,  or  bludgeoned,  one  that  might  at  any  moment 
blurt  out  the  damning  truth  about  police  protection  to 
vice,  corporate  tax-dodging,  the  grabbing  of  water  frontage 
by  railroads,  or  the  non-enforcement  of  the  factory  laws, 
would  be  of  such  strategic  importance  in  the  struggle  for 
wealth  that  desperate  efforts  would  be  made  to  chloroform 
it.  If  its  governing  board  perpetuated  itself  by  coopta- 
tion,  it  would  eventually  be  packed  with  "safe"  men,  who 
would  see  to  it  that  the  newspaper  was  run  in  a  "conserva- 
tive" spirit;  for,  in  the  long  run,  those  who  can  watch  for 
an  advantage  all  the  time  will  beat  the  people,  who  can 
watch  only  some  of  the  time. 

Chloroformed  the  endowed  newspaper  will  be,  unless  it 


THE   SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS      95 

be  committed  to  the  onward  thought  and  conscience  of  the 
community.  This  could  be  done  by  letting  vacancies  on 
the  governing  board  be  filled  in  turn  by  the  local  bar  asso- 
ciation, the  medical  association,  the  ministers'  union,  the 
degree-granting  faculties,  the  federated  teachers,  the  cen- 
tral labor  union,  the  chamber  of  commerce,  the  associated 
charities,  the  public  libraries,  the  non-partisan  citizens' 
associations,  the  improvement  leagues,  and  the  social  set- 
tlements. In  this  way  the  endowment  would  rest  ulti- 
mately on  the  chief  apexes  of  moral  and  intellectual  worth 
in  the  city. 

While  giving,  with  headline,  cut,  and  cartoon,  the  inter- 
esting news,  —  forgeries  and  accidents,  society  and  sports, 
as  well  as  business  and  politics,  —  the  endowed  newspaper 
would  not  dramatize  crime,  or  gossip  of  private  affairs; 
above  all,  it  would  not  "fake,"  "doctor,"  or  sensationalize 
the  news.  Too  self-respecting  to  use  keyhole  tactics,  and 
too  serious  to  chronicle  the  small  beer  of  the  wedding  trous- 
seau or  the  divorce  court,  such  a  newspaper  could  not  begin 
to  match  the  commercial  press  in  circulation.  But  it  would 
reach  those  who  reach  the  public  through  the  weeklies  and 
monthlies,  and  would  inform  the  teachers,  preachers,  lec- 
turers, and  public  men,  who  speak  to  the  people  eye  to  eye. 

What  is  more,  it  would  be  a  corrective  newspaper,  giving 
a  wholesome  leverage  for  lifting  up  the  commercial  press. 
The  big  papers  would  not  dare  be  caught  smothering  or 
"cooking"  the  news.  The  revelations  of  an  independent 
journal  that  everybody  believed,  would  be  a  terror  to  them, 
and,  under  the  spur  of  a  competitor  not  to  be  frightened, 
bought  up,  or  tired  out,  they  would  be  compelled,  in 
sheer  self-preservation,  tell  the  truth  much  oftener  than 
they  do. 

The  Erie  Canal  handles  less  than  a  twentieth  of  the 
traffic  across  the  State  of  New  York,  yet,  by  its  standing 


96      THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  IMPORTANT  NEWS 

offer  of  cheap  transportation,  it  exerts  a  regulative  pressure 
on  railway  rates  which  is  realized  only  when  the  canal 
opens  in  the  spring.  On  the  same  principle,  the  endowed 
newspaper  in  a  given  city  might  print  only  a  twentieth 
of  the  daily  press  output,  and  yet  exercise  over  the  other 
nineteen  twentieths  an  influence  great  and  salutary. 


THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM 

BY  HENRY   WATTERSON 


THE  daily  newspaper,  under  modern  conditions,  em- 
braces two  parts  very  nearly  separate  and  distinct  in  their 
requirements  —  the  journalistic  and  the  commercial. 

The  aptitude  for  producing  a  commodity  is  one  thing, 
and  the  aptitude  for  putting  this  commodity  on  the  market 
is  quite  another  thing.  The  difference  is  not  less  marked 
in  newspaper-making  than  in  other  pursuits.  The  fram- 
ing and  execution  of  contracts  for  advertising,  for  printing- 
paper  and  ink,  linotyping  and  press- work;  the  handling 
of  money  and  credits;  the  organization  of  the  telegraphic 
service  and  postal  service;  the  supervision  of  machinery 
-  in  short,  the  providing  of  the  vehicle  and  the  power  that 
turns  its  wheels  —  is  the  work  of  a  single  mind,  and  usually 
it  is  engrossing  work.  It  demands  special  talent  and  cease- 
less activity  and  attention  all  day  long,  and  every  day  in 
the  year.  Except  it  be  sufficient,  considerable  success  is 
out  of  the  question.  Sometimes  its  sufficiency  is  able  to 
float  an  indifferent  product.  Without  it  the  best  product 
is  likely  to  languish. 

The  making  of  the  newspaper,  that  is,  the  collating  of 
the  news  and  its  consistent  and  uniform  distribution  and 
arrangement,  the  representation  of  the  mood  and  tense 
of  the  time,  a  certain  continuity,  more  or  less,  of  thought 
and  purpose,  —  the  popularization  of  the  commodity,  — 
call  for  energies  and  capacities  of  another  sort.  The  edi- 
tor of  the  morning  newspaper  turns  night  into  day.  When 
others  sleep  he  must  be  awake  and  astir.  His  is  the  only 


98     THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM 

vocation  where  versatility  is  not  a  hindrance  or  a  diversion; 
where  the  conventional  is  not  imposed  upon  his  personality. 
>)jjs}  He  should  be  many-sided,  and  he  is  often  most  engaging 
when  he  seems  least  heedful  of  rule.  Yet  nowhere  is  ready 
and  sound  discretion  in  greater  or  more  constant  need. 
The  editor  must  never  lose  his  head.  Sure,  no  less  than 
prompt,  judgment  is  required  at  every  turning.  It  is  his 
business  to  think  for  everybody.  Each  subordinate  must 
be  so  drilled  and  fitted  to  his  place  as  to  become  in  a  sense 
the  replica  of  his  chief.  And,  even  then,  when  at  noon 
he  goes  carefully  over  the  work  of  the  night  before,  he  will 
be  fortunate  if  he  finds  that  all  has  gone  as  he  planned 
it,  or  could  wish  it. 

I  am  assuming  that  the  make-up  of  the  newspaper  is 
an  autocracy:  the  product  of  one  man,  the  offspring  of  a 
policy;  the  man  indefatigable  and  conscientious,  the  policy 
fixed,  sober,  and  alert.  In  the  famous  sea-fight  the  riff- 
raff of  sailors  from  all  nations,  whom -Paul  Jones  had  picked 
up  wherever  he  could  find  them,  responded  like  the  parts 
of  a  machine  to  the  will  of  their  commander.  They  seemed 
inspired,  the  British  Captain  Pearson  testified  before  the 
Court  of  Inquiry.  So  in  a  well-ordered  newspaper  office, 
when  at  midnight  wires  are  flashing  and  feet  are  hurrying, 
and  to  the  onlooking  stranger  chaos  seems  to  reign,  the 
directing  mind  and  hand  have  their  firm  grip  upon  the 
tiller-ropes,  which  extend  from  the  editorial  room  to  the 
composing-room,  from  the  composing-room  to  the  press- 
room, and  from  the  press-room  to  the  breakfast- table. 


II 

Personal  journalism  had  its  origin  in  the  crude  require- 
ments of  the  primitive  newspaper.  An  editor,  a  printer, 
and  a  printer's  devil,  were  all-sufficient.  For  half  a  cen- 


THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM     99 

tury  after  the  birth  of  the  daily  newspaper  in  America,  one 
man  did  everything  which  fell  under  the  head  of  editorial 
work.  The  army  of  reporters,  telegraphers,  and  writers, 
duly  officered  and  classified,  which  has  come  to  occupy 
the  larger  field,  was  undreamed  of  by  the  pioneers  of  Bos- 
ton, New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore. 

Individual  ownership  was  the  rule.  Little  money  was 
embarked.  Commonly  it  was  "So-and-So's  paper."  Whilst 
the  stories  of  private  war,  of  pistols  and  coffee,  have  been 
exaggerated,  the  early  editors  were  much  beset;  were  held 
to  strict  accountability  for  what  appeared  in  their  columns ; 
sometimes  had  to  take  their  lives  in  their  hands.  In  cer- 
tain regions  the  duello  flourished  —  one  might  say  became 
the  fashion.  Up  to  the  War  of  Secession,  the  instance  of 
an  editor  who  had  not  had  a  personal  encounter,  indeed, 
many  encounters,  was  a  rare  one.  Not  a  few  editors  ac- 
quired celebrity  as  "crack  shots,"  gaining  more  reputation 
by  their  guns  than  by  their  pens. 

The  familiar  "Stop  my  paper"  was  personally  addressed, 
an  ebullition  of  individual  resentment. 

"Mr.  Swain,"  said  an  irate  subscriber  to  the  founder  of 
the  Philadelphia  Ledger,  whom  he  met  one  morning  on  his 
way  to  his  place  of  business,  "I  have  stopped  your  paper, 
sir  —  I  have  stopped  your  paper." 

Mr.  Swain  was  a  gentleman  of  dignity  and  composure. 
"Indeed,"  said  he,  with  a  kindly  intonation;  "come  with 
me  and  let  us  see  about  it." 

When  the  two  had  reached  the  spot  where  the  office  of 
the  Ledger  stood,  nothing  unusual  appeared  to  have  hap- 
pened: the  building  was  still  there,  the  force  within  ap- 
parently engaged  in  its  customary  activities.  Mr.  Swain 
looked  leisurely  about  him,  and  turning  upon  his  now 
expectant  but  thoroughly  puzzled  fellow  townsman,  he 
said,  — 


100  THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM 

"Everything  seems  to  be  as  I  left  it  last  night.  Stop 
my  paper,  sir!  How  could  you  utter  such  a  falsehood!" 

Mr.  James  Gordon  Bennett,  the  elder,  was  frequently 
and  brutally  assailed.  So  was  Mr.  Greeley.  Mr.  Pren- 
tice, though  an  expert  in  the  use  of  weapons,  did  not  escape 
many  attacks  of  murderous  intent.  Editors  fought  among 
themselves,  anon  with  fatal  result,  especially  about  Rich- 
mond in  Virginia,  and  Nashville  in  Tennessee,  and  New 
Orleans.  So  self-respecting  a  gentleman,  and  withal  so 
peaceful  a  citizen,  as  Mr.  William  Cullen  Bryant,  fell  upon 
a  rival  journalist  with  a  horsewhip  on  Broadway,  in  New 
York.  The  prosy  libel  suit  has  come  to  take  the  place 
of  the  tragic  street  duel, — the  courts  of  law  to  settle  what 
was  formerly  submitted  to  the  code  of  honor, — the  star 
0  part  of  "fighting  editor"  having  come  to  be  a  relic  of  by- 
gone squalor  and  glory.  The  call  to  arms  in  1861  found 
few  of  the  editorial  bullies  ready  for  the  fray,  and  no  one 
of  them  made  his  mark  as  a  soldier  in  battle.  They  were 
good  only  on  parade.  Even  the  South  had  its  fill  of  com- 
bat, valor  grew  too  common  to  be  distinguished,  and,  out 
of  a  very  excess  of  broil  and  blood,  along  with  multiplied 
opportunities  for  the  display  of  courage,  gun-play  got  its 
quietus.  The  good  old  times,  when  it  was  thought  that 
a  man  who  had  failed  at  all  else  could  still  keep  a  hotel 
and  edit  a  newspaper,  have  passed  away.  They  are  gone 
forever.  If  a  gentleman  kills  his  man  nowadays,  even 
in  honest  and  fair  fight,  they  call  it  murder.  Editors  have 
actually  to  be  educated  to  their  work,  and  to  work  for  their 
living.  The  soul  of  Bombastes  has  departed,  and  journalism 
is  no  longer  irradiated  and  advertised  by  the  flash  of  arms. 

We  are  wont  to  hear  of  the  superior  integrity  of  those 
days.  There  will  always  be  in  direct  accountability  a 
certain  sense  of  obligation  lacking  to  the  anonymous  and 
impersonal.  Most  men  will  think  twice  before  they  com- 


THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM  101 

mit  their  thoughts  to  print  where  their  names  are  affixed. 
Ambition  and  vanity,  as  well  as  discretion,  play  a  restrain- 
ing part  here;  they  play  it,  even  though  there  be  no  prov- 
ocation to  danger.  Yet,  seeing  that  somebody  must  be 
somewhere  back  of  the  pen,  the  result  would  appear  still 
to  be  referable  to  private  character. 

Most  of  the  personal  journalists  were  in  alliance  with 
the  contemporary  politicians;  all  of  them  were  the  slaves 
of  party.  Many  of  them  were  without  convictions,  hold- 
ing to  the  measures  of  the  time  the  relation  held  by  the 
play-actors  to  the  parts  that  come  to  them  on  the  stage. 
Before  the  advent  of  the  elder  Bennett,  independent  jour- 
nalism was  unknown.  In  the  "partnership"  of  Seward, 
Weed,  and  Greeley,  —  Mr.  Greeley  himself  described  it, 
he  being  "the  junior  member," — office,  no  less  than  public 
printing,  was  the  object  of  two  members  at  least  of  the  firm. 
Lesser  figures  were  squires  instead  of  partners,  their  chiefs 
as  knights  of  old.  Callender  first  served,  then  maligned, 
Jefferson.  Croswell  was  the  man-at-arms  of  the  Albany 
Regency,  valet  to  Mr.  Van  Buren.  Forney  played  major- 
domo  to  Mr.  Buchanan  until  Buchanan,  becoming  Pres- 
ident, left  his  poor  follower  to  hustle  for  himself;  a  signal, 
but  not  anomalous,  piece  of  ingratitude.  Prentice  held 
himself  to  the  orders  of  Clay.  Even  Raymond,  set  up  in 
business  by  the  money  of  Seward's  friends,  could  call  his 
soul  his  own  only  toward  the  end  of  his  life,  and  then  by  a 
single  but  fatal  misstep  brought  ruin  upon  the  property 
his  genius  had  created. 

Not,  indeed,  until  the  latter  third  of  the  last  century 
did  independent  journalism  acquire  considerable  vogue, 
with  Samuel  Bowles  and  Charles  A.  Dana  to  lead  it  in  the 
East,  and  Murat  Halstead  and  Horace  White,  followed 
by  Joseph  Medill,  Victor  F.  Lawson,  Melville  E.  Stone, 
and  William  R.  Nelson,  in  the  West. 


102  THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM 


m 


The  new  school  of  journalism,  sometimes  called  imper- 
sonal and  taking  its  lead  from  the  counting-room,  which 
generally  prevails,  promises  to  become  universal  in  spite 
of  an  individualist  here  and  there  uniting  salient  charac- 
teristics to  controlling  ownership  —  a  union  which  in  the 
first  place  created  the  personal  journalism  of  other  days. 
|Y\  Here,  however,  the  absence  of  personality  is  more  ap- 
parent than  real.  Control  must  be  lodged  somewhere. 
Whether  it  be  upstairs,  or  downstairs,  it  is  bound  to  be  — 
if  successful  —  both  single-minded  and  arbitrary,  the 
embodiment  of  the  inspiration  and  the  will  of  one  man; 
the  expression  made  to  fit  the  changed  conditions  which 
.  have  impressed  themselves  upon  the  writing  and  the  speak- 
ing of  our  time. 

Eloquence  and  fancy,  oratory  and  rhetoric,  have  for 
the  most  part  given  place  in  our  public  life  to  the  language 
of  business.  More  and  more  do  budgets  usurp  the  field 
of  affairs.  As  fiction  has  exhausted  the  situations  possible 
to  imaginative  writing,  so  has  popular  declamation  ex- 
hausted the  resources  of  figurative  speech;  and  just  as  the 
novel  seeks  other  expedients  for  arousing  and  holding  the 
interest  of  its  readers,  do  speakers  and  publicists,  aban- 
doning the  florid  and  artificial,  aim  at  the  simple  and  the 
lucid,  the  terse  and  incisive,  the  argument  the  main  point, 
attained,  as  a  rule,  in  the  statement.  To  this  end  the 
counting-room,  with  its  close  kinship  to  the  actualities 
of  the  world  about  it,  has  a  definite  advantage  over  the 
editorial  room,  as  a  school  of  instruction.  Nor  is  there 
any  reason  why  the  head  of  the  counting-room  should  not 
be  as  highly  qualified  to  direct  the  editorial  policies  as  the 
financial  policies  of  the  newspaper  of  which,  as  the  agent 
of  a  corporation  or  an  estate,  he  has  become  the  executive; 


THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM   103 

the  newspaper  thus  conducted  assuming  something  of 
the  character  of  the  banking  institution  and  the  railway 
company,  being  indeed  in  a  sense  a  common  carrier.  At 
least  a  greater  show  of  stability  and  respectability,  if  not 
a  greater  sense  of  responsibility,  would  be  likely  to  follow 
such  an  arrangement,  since  it  would  establish  a  more  im- 
mediate relation  with  the  community  than  that  embraced 
by  the  system  which  seems  to  have  passed  away,  a  system 
which  was  not  nearly  so  accessible,  and  was,  moreover, 
hedged  about  by  a  certain  mystery  that  attaches  itself  to 
midnight,  to  the  flare  of  the  footlights  and  the  smell  of 
printers'  ink. 

I  had  written  thus  far  and  was  about  to  pursue  this  line 
of  thought  with  some  practical  suggestion  emanating  from 
a  wealth  of  observation  and  reminiscence  when,  reading 
the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  March,  I  encountered  the  fol- 
lowing passage  from  the  very  thoughtful  paper  of  Mr. 
Edward  Alsworth  Ross,  entitled  "The  Suppression  of 
Important  News": — 

"More  and  more  the  owner  of  the  big  daily  is  a  business 
man  who  finds  it  hard  to  see  why  he  should  run  his  property 
on  different  lines  from  the  hotel  proprietor,  the  vaudeville 
manager,  or  the  owner  of  an  amusement  park.  The  editors 
are  hired  men,  and  they  may  put  into  the  paper  no  more 
of  their  conscience  and  ideals  than  comports  with  getting 
the  biggest  return  from  the  investment.  Of  course,  the 
old-time  editor  who  owned  his  paper  tried  to  make  money 
—  no  sin,  that !  —  but  just  as  to-day  the  author,  the  lec- 
turer, or  the  scholar,  tries  to  make  money,  namely,  within 
the  limitations  imposed  by  his  principles  and  his  profes- 
sional standards.  But,  now  that  the  provider  of  the  news- 
paper capital  hires  the  editor  instead  of  the  editor  hiring 
the  newspaper  capital,  the  paper  is  likelier  to  be  run  as  a 
money-maker  pure  and  simple  —  a  factory  where  ink  and 


104  THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM 

brains  are  so  applied  to  white  paper  as  to  turn  out  the 
largest  possible  marketable  product.  The  capitalist-owner 
means  no  harm,  but  he  is  not  bothered  by  the  standards 
that  hamper  the  editor*owner.  He  follows  a  few  simple 
maxims  that  work  out  well  enough  in  selling  shoes  or  cigars 
or  sheet-music." 

There  follow  many  examples  of  the  "suppression"  of 
"news."  Some  of  these  might  be  called  "important." 
Others  are  less  so.  Here  enters  a  question  as  to  what  is 
"news"  and  what  is  not;  a  question  which  gives  rise  to 
frequent  and  sometimes  considerable  differences  of  opinion. 

If  the  newspaper  manager  is  to  make  no  distinction 
between  vaudeville  and  journalism,  between  the  selling  of 
white  paper  disfigured  by  printer's  ink  and  the  selling  of 
shoes,  or  sheet-music,  comment  would  seem  superfluous. 
I  venture  to  believe  that  such  a  manager  would  nowhere 
be  able  long  to  hold  his  own  against  one  of  an  ambition 
and  intelligence  better  suited  to  supplying  the  require- 
ment of  the  public  demand  for  a  vehicle  of  communication 
between  itself  and  the  world  at  large.  Now  and  then  we 
see  a  very  well-composed  newspaper  fail  of  success  be- 
cause of  its  editorial  character  and  tone.  Now  and  then 
we  see  one  succeed,  having  no  editorial  character  and 
tone.  But  the  rule  is  otherwise.  The  leading  dailies 
everywhere  stand  for  something.  They  are  rarely  with- 
out aspiration.  Because  of  the  unequal  capabilities  of 
those  who  conduct  them,  they  have  had  their  ups  and 
downs :  great  journals,  like  the  Chicago  Times,  passing  out 
of  existence  through  the  lack  of  an  adequate  head;  failing 
journals,  like  the  New  York  World,  saved  from  shipwreck 
by  the  timely  arrival  of  an  adequate  head. 

My  own  observation  leads  me  to  believe  that  more  is 
to  be  charged  against  the  levity  and  indifference  of  the 
average  newspaper  —  perhaps  I  should  say  its  ignorance 


THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM  105 

and  indolence  —  than  against  the  suppression  of  important 
news.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  suppression  does  not  suppress. 
Conflicting  interests  attend  to  that.  Mr.  Ross  relates  that 
on  the  desk  of  every  editor  and  sub-editor  of  a  newspaper 
run  by  a  certain  capitalist,  who  was  also  a  promoter,  lay 
a  list  of  sixteen  corporations  in  which  the  owner  was  inter- 
ested. This  was  to  remind  them  not  to  print  anything 
damaging  to  those  particular  concerns.  In  the  office  the 
exempted  subjects  were  jocularly  referred  to  as  "sacred 
cows." 

This  case,  familiar  to  all  newspaper  men,  was  an  extreme 
one.  The  newspaper  proved  a  costly  and  ignominious 
failure.  Its  owner,  who  ran  it  on  the  lines  of  an  "amuse- 
ment park,"  landed  first  in  a  bankruptcy  and  then  in  a 
criminal  court,  finally  to  round  up  in  the  penitentiary. 
Before  him,  and  in  the  same  city,  a  fellow  "journalist" 
had  been  given  a  state-prison  sentence.  In  another  and 
adjacent  city  the  editor  and  owner  of  a  famous  and  in- 
fluential newspaper  who  had  prostituted  himself  and  his 
calling  escaped  the  stripes  of  a  convict  only  through  exec- 
utive clemency. 

The  disposition  to  publish  everything,  without  regard 
to  private  feeling  or  good  neighborhood,  may  be  carried 
to  an  excess  quite  as  hurtful  to  the  community  as  the 
suppressions  of  which  Mr.  Ross  tells  us  in  his  interesting 
resume.  The  newspaper  which  constitutes  itself  judge  and 
jury,  which  condemns  in  advance  of  conviction,  which, 
reversing  the  English  rule  of  law,  assumes  the  accused 
guilty  instead  of  innocent,  —  the  newspaper,  in  short, 
which  sets  itself  up  as  a  public  prosecutor,  —  is  likely  to 
become  a  common  scold  and  to  arouse  its  readers  out  of 
all  proportion  to  any  good  achieved  by  publicity.  As  in 
other  affairs  of  life,  the  sense  of  decency  imposes  certain 
reserves,  and  also  the  sense  of  charity. 


106  THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM 

The  justest  complaint  which  may  be  laid  at  the  door  of 
the  modern  newspaper  seems  to  me  its  invasion  of  the  home, 
and  the  conversion  of  its  reporters  into  detectives.  Pre- 
tending to  be  the  defender  of  liberty,  it  too  often  is  the  as- 
sailant of  private  right.  Each  daily  issue  should  indeed 
aim  to  be  the  history  of  yesterday,  but  it  should  be  clean 
as  well  as  truthful;  and  as  we  seek  in  our  usual  walks  and 
ways  to  avoid  that  which  is  nasty  and  ghastly,  so  should 
we,  in  the  narration  of  scandal  and  crime,  guard  equally 
against  exaggeration  and  pruriency,  nor  be  ashamed  to  sup- 
press that  which  may  be  too  vile  to  tell. 

In  a  recent  article  Mr.  Victor  Rosewater,  the  accom- 
plished editor  of  the  Omaha  Bee,  takes  issue  with  Mr.  Ross 
upon  the  whole  line  of  his  argument,  which  he  subjects 
to  the  critical  analysis  of  a  practical  journalist.  The 
muck-raking  magazines,  so  extolled  by  Mr.  Ross,  are  shown 
by  Mr.  Rosewater  to  be  the  merest  collection  of  already 
printed  newspaper  material,  the  periodical  writer  having 
time  to  put  them  together  in  more  connected  form.  He 
also  shows  that  the  Chautauqua  circuits  are  but  the  ema- 
nations of  newspaper  advertising;  and  that,  if  newspapers 
of  one  party  make  suppressions  in  the  interest  of  their 
party,  the  newspapers  of  the  other  are  ready  with  the 
antidote.  Obviously,  Mr.  Ross  is  either  a  newspaper  sub- 
altern, or  a  college  professor.  In  either  case  he  is,  as  Mr. 
Rosewater  shows,  a  visionary. 

In  nothing  does  this  betray  itself  so  clearly  as  in  the 
suggestion  of  "an  endowed  newspaper,"  which  is  Mr. 
Ross's  remedy  for  the  evils  he  enumerates. 

"Because  newspapers,  as  a  rule,  prefer  construction 
to  destruction,"  says  Mr.  Rosewater,  "they  are  accused 
by  Mr.  Ross  of  malfeasance  for  selfish  purposes.  True, 
a  newspaper  depends  for  its  own  prosperity  upon  the  pros- 
perity of  the  community  in  which  it  is  published.  The 


THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM  107 

newspaper  selfishly  prefers  business  prosperity  to  business 
adversity.  A  panic  is  largely  psychological,  and  the  news- 
papers can  do  much  to  aggravate  or  to  mitigate  its  sever- 
ity. There  is  no  question  that  to  the  willful  efforts  of 
the  newspapers  as  a  body  to  allay  public  fear  and  to  restore 
business  confidence  is  to  be  credited  the  short  duration 
and  comparative  mildness  of  the  last  financial  cataclysm. 
Would  an  endowed  newspaper  have  acted  differently? 
Most  people  would  freely  commend  the  newspapers  for 
what  they  did  to  start  the  wheels  of  industry  again  re- 
volving, and  this  is  the  first  time  I  have  seen  them  con- 
demned for  suppressing  'important  news'  of  business 
calamity  and  industrial  distress  in  subservience  to  a  wor- 
ship of  advertising  revenue." 

The  truth  of  this  can  hardly  be  denied.  Most  fair- 
minded  observers  will  agree  with  Mr.  Rosewater  that  "a 
few  black  sheep  in  the  newspaper  fold  do  not  make  the 
whole  flock  black,  nor  do  the  combined  imperfections  of 
all  newspapers  condemn  them  to  failure";  and  I  cannot 
resist  quoting  entire  the  admirable  conclusion  with  which 
a  recognized  newspaper  authority  disposes  of  a  thoroughly 
theoretic  newspaper  critic. 

"Personally,"  says  Mr.  Rosewater,  "I  would  like  to 
see  the  experiment  of  an  endowed  newspaper  tried,  be- 
cause I  am  convinced  comparison  would  only  redound  to 
the  advantage  of  the  newspaper  privately  conducted  as 
a  commercial  undertaking.  The  newspaper  most  akin 
to  the  endowed  newspaper  in  this  country  is  published 
in  the  interest  of  the  Christian  Science  Church.  With  it, 
*  important  news '  is  news  calculated  to  promote  the  prop- 
aganda of  the  faith,  and  close  inspection  of  its  columns 
would  disclose  news-suppression  in  every  issue.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  daily  newspaper,  standing  on  its  own  bot- 
tom, must  have  readers  to  make  its  advertising  space 


108  THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM 

valuable,  and  without  a  reasonable  effort  to  cover  all  the 
news  and  command  public  confidence,  the  standing  and 
clientage  of  the  paper  cannot  be  successfully  maintained. 
The  endowed  paper  pictured  to  us  as  the  ideal  paper,  run 
by  a  board  of  governors  filled  in  turn  by  representatives 
of  the  various  uplift  societies  enumerated  by  Professor 
Ross,  would  blow  hot  and  would  blow  cold,  would  have 
no  consistent  policy  or  principles,  would  be  unable  to  alter 
the  prevailing  notion  of  what  constitutes  important  news, 
and  would  be  from  the  outset  busily  engaged  in  a  work 
of  news-suppression  to  suit  the  whims  of  the  particular 
hobby-riders  who  happened  for  the  moment  to  be  in  dom- 
inating control." 

In  journalism,  as  in  statesmanship,  the  doctrinaire  is 
more  confident  than  the  man  of  affairs.  So,  in  war,  the 
lieutenant  is  bolder  in  the  thought  than  the  captain  in  the 
action.  Often  the  newspaper  subaltern,  distrusting  his 
chief,  calls  that  "mercenary"  which  is  in  reality  "dis- 
crimination." It  is  a  pity  that  there  is  not  more  of  this 
latter  in  our  editorial  practice. 


IV 

Disinterestedness,  unselfish  devotion  to  the  public 
interest,  is  the  soul  of  true  journalism  as  of  true  states- 
manship; and  this  is  as  likely  to  proceed  from  the  count- 
ing-room as  from  the  editorial  room;  only,  the  business 
manager  must  be  a  journalist. 

The  journalism  of  Paris  is  personal,  the  journalism  of 
London  is  impersonal  —  that  is  to  say,  the  one  illustrates 
the  self-exploiting,  individualized  star-system,  the  other 
the  more  sedate  and  orderly,  yet  not  less  responsible,  com- 
mercial system;  and  it  must  be  allowed  that,  in  both  dig- 
nity and  usefulness,  the  English  is  to  be  preferred  to  the 


THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM   109 

French  journalism.  It  is  true  that  English  publishers 
are  sometimes  elevated  to  the  peerage.  But  this  is  no- 
wise worse  than  French  and  American  editors  becoming 
candidates  for  office.  In  either  case,  the  public  and  the 
press  are  losers  in  the  matter  of  the  service  rendered,  be- 
cause journalism  and  office  are  so  antipathetic  that  their 
union  must  be  destructive  to  both. 

The  upright  man  of  business,  circumspect  in  his  every- 
day behavior  and  jealous  of  his  commercial  honor,  needs 
only  to  be  educated  in  the  newspaper  business  to  bring 
to  it  the  characteristic  virtues  which  shine  and  prosper 
in  the  more  ambitious  professional  and  business  pursuits. 
The  successful  man  in  the  centres  of  activity  is  usually 
a  worldly-wise  and  prepossessing  person.  Other  things 
being  equal,  success  of  the  higher  order  inclines  to  those 
qualites  of  head  and  heart,  of  breeding  and  education  and 
association,  which  go  to  the  making  of  what  we  call  a 
gentleman.  The  element  of  charm,  scarcely  less  than  the 
elements  of  energy,  integrity,  and  penetration,  is  a  prime 
ingredient.  Add  breadth  and  foresight,  and  we  have 
the  greater  result  of  fortune  and  fame. 

All  these  essentials  to  preeminent  manhood  must  be 
fulfilled  by  the  newspaper  which  aspires  to  preeminence. 
And  there  is  no  reason  why  this  may  not  spring  from  the 
business  end,  why  they  may  not  exist  and  flourish  there, 
exhaling  their  perfume  into  every  department;  in  short, 
why  they  may  not  tempt  ambition.  The  newspapers,  as 
Hamlet  observes  of  the  players,  are  the  abstracts  and 
brief  chronicles  of  the  time.  It  were  indeed  better  to 
have  a  bad  epitaph  when  you  die  than  their  ill  report  while 
you  live,  even  from  those  of  the  baser  sort;  how  much 
more  from  a  press  having  the  confidence  and  respect  — 
and  yet  more  than  these,  the  affection  —  of  the  commu- 
nity? Hence  it  is  that  special  college  training  is  beginning 


110  THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM 

to  be  thought  of,  and  occasionally  tried;  and,  while  this  is 
subject  to  very  serious  disadvantage  on  the  experimental 
side,  its  ethical  value  may  in  the  long  run  find  some  way 
to  give  it  practical  application  and  to  make  it  permanent 
as  an  arm  of  the  newspaper  service.  Assuredly,  character 
is  an  asset,  and  nowhere  does  it  pay  surer  and  larger  divi- 
dends than  in  the  newspaper  business. 


We  are  passing  through  a  period  of  transition.  The 
old  system  of  personal  journalism  having  gone  out,  and 
the  new  system  of  counting-room  journalism  having  not 
quite  reached  a  full  realization  of  itself,  the  editorial  func- 
tion seems  to  have  fallen  into  a  lean  and  slippered  state, 
the  matters  of  tone  and  style  honored  rather  in  the  breach 
than  in  the  observance.  Too  many  ill-trained,  uneducated 
lads  have  graduated  out  of  the  city  editor's  room  by  sheer 
force  of  audacity  and  enterprise  into  the  more  important 
posts.  Too  often  the  counting-room  takes  no  supervision 
of  the  editorial  room  beyond  the  immediate  selling  value 
of  the  paper  the  latter  turns  out.  Things  upstairs  are  left 
at  loose  ends.  There  are  examples  of  opportunities  lost 
through  absentee  landlordism. 

These  conditions,  however,  are  ephemeral.  They  will 
yield  before  the  progressive  requirements  of  a  process 
of  popular  evolution  which  is  steadily  lifting  the  masses 
out  of  the  slough  of  degeneracy  and  ignorance.  The  dime 
novel  has  not  the  vogue  it  once  had.  Neither  has  the 
party  organ.  Readers  will  not  rest  forever  content  under 
the  impositions  of  fake  or  colored  news;  of  misleading 
headlines;  of  false  alarums  and  slovenly  writing.  Already 
they  begin  to  discriminate,  and  more  and  clearly  they  will 
learn  to  discriminate,  between  the  meretricious  and  the  true. 


THE  PERSONAL  EQUATION  IN  JOURNALISM   111 

The  competition  in  sensationalism,  to  which  we  owe  the 
yellow  press,  as  it  is  called,  will  become  a  competition  in 
cleanliness  and  accuracy.  The  counting-room,  which  is 
next  to  the  people  and  carries  the  purse,  will  see  that  de- 
cency pays,  that  good  sense  and  good  faith  are  good  invest- 
ments, and  it  will  look  closer  to  the  personal  character  and 
the  moral  product  of  the  editorial  room,  requiring  better 
equipment  and  more  elevated  standards.  There  will  never 
again  be  a  Greeley,  or  a  Raymond,  or  a  Dana,  playing  the 
role  of  "star"  and  personally  exploited  by  everything 
appearing  in  journals  which  seemed  to  exist  mainly  to 
glorify  them.  Each  was  in  his  way  a  man  of  superior 
attainments.  Each  thought  himself  an  unselfish  servant 
of  the  public.  Yet  each  had  his  limitations  —  his  ambi- 
tions and  prejudices,  his  likes  and  dislikes,  intensified  and 
amplified  by  the  habit  of  personalism,  often  unconscious. 
And,  this  personal  element  eliminated,  why  may  not  the 
impersonal  head  of  the  coming  newspaper  —  proud  of  his 
profession,  and  satisfied  with  the  results  of  its  ministra- 
tion —  render  a  yet  better  account  to  God  and  the  people 
in  unselfish  devotion  to  the  common  interest? 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS 

BY   AN   OBSERVER 


THE  question  of  suppressed  or  tainted  news  has  in  recent 
years  been  repeatedly  agitated,  and  reformers  of  all  brands 
have  urged  that  the  majority  of  the  newspapers  of  the 
country  are  business-tied  —  that  they  are  ruled  according 
to  the  sordid  ambition  of  the  counting-house  rather  than 
by  the  untrammeled  play  of  the  editorial  intellect.  Capi- 
talism is  alleged  to  be  playing  ducks  and  drakes  with  the 
Anglo-Saxon  tradition  of  a  free  press. 

The  most  important  instance  of  criticism  of  this  kind  is 
afforded  by  current  attacks  upon  the  Associated  Press. 
The  Associated  Press,  as  everybody  knows,  is  the  greatest 
news-gathering  organization  in  the  world;  it  supplies  with 
their  daily  general  information  more  than  half  the  popula- 
tion of  the  United  States.  That  it  should  be  accused,  in 
these  times  of  class  controversy  and  misunderstanding,  of 
being  a  "news  trust,"  and  of  coloring  its  news  in  the  inter- 
est of  capital  and  reaction,  is  therefore  an  excessively  grave 
matter.  Yet  in  the  last  six  months  it  has  been  accused  of 
both  those  things.  So  persistent  has  been  the  assertion  of 
certain  socialists  that  the  Associated  Press  colors  industrial 
news  in  the  interest  of  the  employer,  that  its  management 
has  sued  them  for  libel.  That  it  is  a  trust  is  the  contention 
of  one  of  its  rivals,  the  Sun  News  Bureau  of  New  York, 
whose  prayer  for  its  dissolution  under  the  Sherman  law,  as 
a  monopoly  in  restraint  of  trade,  is  now  before  the  Depart- 
ment of  Justice  in  Washington.1 

1This  charge  made  by  the  New  York  Sun,  in  February,  1914,  was  not 
sustained  in  an  opinion  given  by  the  Attorney  General  of  the  United 
States  on  March  17,  1915.— ED. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS    113 

To  the  writer,  the  main  questions  at  issue,  so  far  as  the 
public  is  concerned,  seem  to  be  as  follows :  — 

1.  Is  the  business  of  collecting  and  distributing  news  in 
bulk  essentially  monopolistic?  2.  If  it  is,  and  if  it  can  not 
be  satisfactorily  performed  by  an  unlimited  number  of 
competitive  agencies  (that  is,  individual  newspapers),  is 
the  Associated  Press  in  theory  and  practice  the  best  type 
of  centralized  organization  for  the  purpose? 

The  first  question  presents  little  difficulty  to  the  practi- 
cal journalist.  A  successful  agency  for  the  gathering  of 
news  must  be  monopolistic.  No  newspaper  is  rich  enough, 
the  attention  of  no  editor  is  ubiquitous  enough,  to  be  able 
to  collect  at  first  hand  a  tithe  of  the  multitudinous  items 
which  a  public  of  catholic  curiosity  expects  to  find  neatly 
arranged  on  its  breakfast  table.  Take  the  large  journals 
of  New  York  and  Boston,  with  their  columns  of  news  from 
all  parts  of  the  United  States  and  the  world.  Their  bills 
for  telegrams  and  cablegrams  alone  would  be  prohibitive 
of  dividends,  to  say  nothing  of  their  bills  for  the  collection 
of  the  news.  A  public  educated  by  a  number  of  newspapers 
with  their  powers  of  observation  and  instruction  whetted 
to  superlative  excellence  by  keen  competition  would  no 
doubt  be  ideal;  but  a  journalistic  Utopia  of  that  kind  is 
no  more  feasible  than  other  Utopias.  Unlimited  and  un- 
assisted competition  between,  say,  six  newspapers  in  the 
same  city  or  district  would  be  about  as  feasible  economic- 
ally as  unlimited  competition  between  six  railway  lines  run- 
ning from  Boston  to  New  York.  The  need  for  a  common 
service  of  foreign  and  national  news  must  therefore  be  ad- 
mitted. To  supply  such  a  service,  even  in  these  days  of 
especially  cheap  telegraph  and  cable  rates  for  press  mat- 
ter, requires  a  great  deal  of  money,  and  a  press  agency  has 
a  great  deal  of  money  to  spend  only  if  it  has  also  a  large 
number  of  customers. 


114   THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS 

As  the  number  of  newspapers  is  limited,  it  is  clear  that 
the  press  agency  has  strong  claims  to  be  recognized  as  a 
public  service,  and  to  be  classed  with  railways,  telephones, 
telegraphs,  waterworks,  and  many  other  forms  of  corporate 
venture  which  even  the  wildest  radical  admits  cannot  be 
subjected  to  the  anarchy  of  unrestricted  competition. 
Thus  the  simple  charge  that  the  Associated  Press  is  a 
monopoly  cannot  be  held  to  condemn  it.  But,  to  invert 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  famous  phrase,  there  are  bad  trusts  as 
well  as  good  trusts.  That  the  Associated  Press  is  powerful 
enough  to  be  a  bad  trust  if  those  who  control  it  so  desire 
must  be  admitted  offhand.  It  is  a  tremendously  effective 
organization.  Its  service  is  supplied  to  more  than  850  of 
the  leading  newspapers,  with  a  total  circulation  of,  prob- 
ably, about  20,000,000  copies  a  day. 

The  Associated  Press  is  the  child  of  the  first  effort  at 
cooperative  news- gathering  ever  made.  Back  in  the  for- 
ties of  the  last  century,  before  the  Atlantic  cable  was  laid, 
newspapers  began  to  spend  ruinous  sums  in  getting  the 
earliest  news  from  Europe.  Those  were  the  days  in  which 
the  first  ship-news  dispatch-boats  were  launched  to  meet 
vessels  as  they  entered  New  York  harbor,  and  to  race  back 
with  the  news  to  their  respective  offices.  The  competition 
grew  to  the  extent  even  of  sending  fast  boats  all  the  way 
to  Europe,  and  soon  became  extravagant  enough  to  cause 
its  collapse.  Then  seven  New  York  newspapers  organized 
a  joint  service.  This  service,  which  was  meant  primarily  to 
cover  European  news,  grew  slowly  to  cover  the  United 
States.  Newspapers  in  other  cities  were  taken  into  it  on 
a  reciprocal  basis.  The  news  of  the  Association  was  sup- 
plied at  that  time  in  return  for  a  certain  sum,  the  news- 
papers undertaking  on  their  part  to  act  as  the  local  corre- 
spondents of  the  Association.  A  reciprocal  arrangement 
with  Renter's,  the  great  European  agency,  followed, 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS    115 

whereby  it  supplied  the  Associated  Press  with  its  foreign 
service,  and  the  Associated  Press  gave  to  Renter's  the  use 
of  its  American  service. 

Even  so,  the  Associated  Press  did  not  carry  all  before  it. 
In  the  seventies  a  number  of  Western  newspapers  formed 
the  Western  Associated  Press.  A  period  of  sharp  competi- 
tion followed,  but  in  1882  the  two  associations  signed  a 
treaty  of  partnership  for  ten  years.  They  were  not  long 
in  supreme  control  of  the  field,  however.  The  Associated 
Press  of  those  days,  like  its  successor  to-day,  was  a  close 
corporation  in  the  sense  that  its  members  could  and  did 
veto  the  inclusion  of  rivals.  As  the  West  grew,  new  news- 
papers sprang  up  and  were  kept  in  the  cold  by  their  estab- 
lished rivals.  The  result  was  the  United  Press,  which  soon 
worked  up  an  effective  service.  The  Associated  Press  tried 
to  cripple  it  by  a  rule  that  no  newspaper  subscribing  to  its 
service  should  have  access  to  the  news  of  the  Associated 
Press;  but  in  spite  of  the  rule  the  United  Press  waxed  strong 
and  might  have  become  a  really  formidable  competitor  had 
not  the  Associated  Press  been  able  to  buy  a  controlling 
share  in  it.  A  harmonious  business  agreement  followed; 
but  in  accordance  with  the  business  methods  of  those  days 
the  public  was  not  apprized  of  the  agreement,  and  when, 
in  1892,  its  existence  became  known,  there  was  a  row 
and  a  readjustment.  The  United  Press  absorbed  the  old 
Associated  Press  of  New  York,  and  the  Western  Associated 
Press  again  became  independent.  Renter's  agency  contin- 
ued to  supply  both  associations  with  its  European  service. 

But  the  ensuing  period  of  competition  did  not  last. 
Three  years  later,  the  Western  Associated  Press  achieved 
a  monopolistic  agreement  with  Renter's,  carried  the  war 
into  the  United  Press  territory,  —  the  South  and  the  coun- 
try east  of  the  Alleghanies,  —  got  a  number  of  New  York 
newspapers  to  join  it,  and  effected  a  national  organization. 


116   THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS 


That  national  organization  is,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, the  Associated  Press  of  to-day.  The  only  really 
important  change  has  been  in  its  transference  as  a  com- 
pany from  the  jurisdiction  of  Illinois  to  that  of  New  York. 
This  change  was  accomplished  in  1900,  owing  to  an  ad- 
verse judgment  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois.  To  grasp 
the  significance  of  that  judgment,  and  indeed  the  current 
agitation  against  the  Associated  Press,  it  is  necessary  to 
sketch  briefly  its  rules  and  methods. 

The  Associated  Press  is  not  a  commercial  company  in 
the  sense  that  it  is  a  dividend-hunting  concern.  Under  the 
terms  of  its  present  charter,  the  corporation  "is  not  to  make 
a  profit  or  to  make  or  declare  dividends  and  is  not  to  en- 
gage in  the  selling  of  intelligence  or  traffic  in  the  same." 
It  is  simply  meant  to  be  the  common  agent  of  a  number  of 
subscribing  newspapers,  for  the  interchange  of  news  which 
each  collects  in  its  own  district,  and  for  the  collection  of 
news  such  as  subscribers  cannot  collect  singlehanded :  that 
is,  foreign  news  and  news  concerning  certain  classes  of 
domestic  happenings.  Its  board  of  directors  consists  of 
journalists  and  publishers  connected  with  subscribing  news- 
papers, who  serve  without  payment.  Its  executive  work 
is  done  by  a  salaried  general  manager  and  his  assistants. 
It  is  financed  on  a  basis  of  weekly  assessments  levied,  ac- 
cording to  their  size  and  custom,  upon  newspapers  which 
are  members.  The  sum  thus  collected  comes  to  about 
$3,000,000  a  year.  It  is  spent  partly  for  the  hire  of  special 
wires  from  the  telegraph  companies,  and  partly  for  the 
maintenance  of  special  news-collecting  staffs.  The  mileage 
of  leased  wires  is  immense,  amounting  to  about  22,000 
miles  by  day  and  28,000  miles  by  night.  Nor  does  the 
organization,  as  some  of  its  critics  seem  to  imagine,  get  any 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS    117 

special  privileges  from  the  telegraph  companies.  Such 
privileges  belonged  to  its  early  history,  when  business 
standards  were  lower  than  they  are  now. 

The  Associated  Press  has  at  least  one  member  in  every 
city  of  any  size  in  the  country.  That  in  itself  insures  it  a 
good  news-service;  but,  as  indicated  above,  it  has  in  all 
important  centres  a  bureau  of  its  own.  Important  events, 
whether  fixed,  like  national  conventions,  or  fortuitous,  like 
strikes  or  floods  or  shipwrecks,  it  covers  more  compre- 
hensively than  any  single  newspaper  can  do.  Its  foreign 
service  is  ubiquitous.  It  no  longer  depends  upon  its  ar- 
rangement with  Reuter,  and  other  foreign  news-agencies: 
early  in  the  present  century  the  intelligence  thus  collected 
was  found  to  lack  the  American  point  of  view,  and  an 
extensive  foreign  service  was  formed,  with  local  headquar- 
ters in  London,  Paris,  and  other  European  capitals,  Peking, 
Tokyo,  Mexico,  and  Havana,  and  with  scores  of  corre- 
spondents all  over  the  world. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  its  efficiency  and  the 
manner  of  its  organization  combine  to  give  the  Associated 
Press  a  distinct  savor  of  monopoly.  As  the  Sun  News 
Bureau  and  other  rivals  have  found,  it  cannot  be  effectively 
competed  against.  Too  many  of  the  richest  and  most 
powerful  newspapers  belong  to  it. 

Is  it  a  harmful  monopoly?  Its  critics,  as  explained 
above,  are  busy  proving  that  it  is.  They  urge  that,  being 
a  close  corporation,  it  stifles  trade  in  the  selling  of  news, 
and  that  it  is  not  impartial. 

The  first  argument  is  based  upon  the  following  facts. 
Membership  in  the  Associated  Press  is  naturally  valuable. 
An  Associated  Press  franchise  to  a  newspaper  in  New  York 
or  Chicago  is  worth  from  $50,000  to  $200,000.*  To  share 

1  In  the  appraisal  of  the  estate  of  Joseph  Pulitzer  in  1914,  the  two  Asso- 
ciated Press  franchises  held  by  the  New  York  World,  one  for  the  morning 
and  one  for  the  evening  edition,  were  valued  at  $240,000  each.  —  ED. 


118    THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS 

such  a  privilege  is  not  in  human  or  commercial  nature.  One 
of  the  first  rules  of  the  organization  is,  therefore,  that  no 
new  newspaper  can  be  admitted  without  the  consent  of 
members  within  competitive  radius.  Naturally,  that  as- 
sent is  seldom  given.  This  "power  of  protest"  has  not 
been  kept  without  a  struggle.  The  law-suit  of  1900  was 
due  to  it.  The  Chicago  Inter-Ocean  was  refused  admission,1 
and  went  to  law.  The  case  went  to  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Illinois,  which  ruled  that  a  press  agency  like  the  Associated 
Press  was  in  the  nature  of  a  public  service  and  as  such  ought 
to  be  open  to  everybody.  To  have  yielded  to  the  judgment 
would  have  smashed  the  Associated  Press,  so  it  reorganized 
under  the  laws  of  New  York,  with  the  moral  satisfaction 
of  knowing  that  the  courts  of  Missouri  had  upheld  what 
the  Illinois  court  had  condemned.  Its  new  constitution, 
which  is  that  of  to-day,  keeps  in  effect  the  right  of  protest, 
the  only  difference  being  that  a  disappointed  applicant  for 
membership  gets  the  not  very  useful  consolation  of  being 
able  to  appeal  to  the  association  in  the  slender  hope  that 
four-fifths  of  the  members  will  vote  for  his  admission. 

The  practical  working  of  the  rule  has  undoubtedly  been 
monopolistic;  not  so  much  because  it  has  rendered  the 
Associated  Press  a  monopoly,  but  because  it  has  rendered 
it  the  mother,  potential  and  sometimes  actual,  of  countless 
small  monopolies.  On  account  of  the  size  of  the  United 
States  and  the  diverse  interests  of  the  various  sections, 
there  is  in  our  country  no  daily  press  with  a  national  cir- 
culation. Newspapers  depend  primarily  upon  their  local 
constituencies.  In  each  journalistic  geographic  unit,  if 
the  expression  may  be  allowed,  one  or  more  newspapers 
possess  the  Associated  Press  franchise.  Such  newspapers 
have  in  the  excellent  and  comparatively  cheap  Associated 
Press  service  an  instrument  for  monopoly  hardly  less  valu- 

1  This  is  an  error  which  is  corrected  in  Mr.  Stone's  reply,  cf .  p.  124. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS    lid 

able  than  a  rebate-giving  railway  may  be  to  a  commercial 
corporation.  It  is  also  alleged  by  some  of  its  enemies  that 
the  Associated  Press  still  at  times  enjoins  its  members 
against  taking  simultaneously  the  service  of  its  rival. 

It  is  easy  to  argue  that,  because  the  Associated  Press  is 
a  close  corporation,  it  cannot  be  a  monopoly,  and  that  those 
who  are  really  trying  to  make  a  "news  trust"  of  it  are 
they  who  insist  that  it  ought  to  be  open  to  all  comers;  but 
in  practice  the  argument  is  a  good  deal  of  a  quibble.  The 
facts  remain  that,  as  shown  above,  an  effective  news-agency 
has  to  be  tremendously  rich;  that  to  be  tremendously  rich 
it  has  to  have  prosperous  constituents ;  and  that  the  large 
majority  of  prosperous  newspapers  of  the  country  belong 
to  the  Associated  Press.  In  the  writer's  opinion  it  would 
be  virtually  impossible,  as  things  stand,  for  any  of  the 
Associated  Press's  rivals  to  become  the  Associated  Press's 
equal,  upon  either  a  commercial  or  a  cooperative  basis. 


in 

The  tremendous  importance  of  the  question  of  the  fair- 
ness of  the  Associated  Press  service  is  now  apparent.  If  it 
is  deliberately  tainted,  as  the  socialists  and  radicals  aver, 
there  is  virtually  no  free  press  in  the  country.  The  ques- 
tion is  a  very  delicate  one.  Enemies  of  the  Associated 
Press  assert  in  brief  that  its  stories  about  industrial 
troubles  are  colored  in  the  interest  of  the  employer;  that  its 
political  news  shows  a  similar  bias  in  favor  of  the  pluto- 
cratic party,  whatever  that  may  be;  that,  in  fact,  it  is  used 
as  a  class  organ.  In  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1912, 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  followers  insisted  that  the  doings  of  their 
candidates  were  blanketed.  In  the  recent  labor  troubles 
[1914]  in  West  Virginia,  Michigan,  and  Colorado,  the 


120   THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS 

friends  of  labor  have  made  the  same  complaint  of  one- 
sidedness  in  the  interest  of  the  employer. 

Not  only  do  the  directors  of  the  Associated  Press  deny 
all  insinuations  of  unfairness,  but  they  argue  that  partisan- 
ship, and  especially  political  partisanship,  would  be  impos- 
sible in  view  of  the  multitudinous  shades  of  political  opinion 
represented  by  their  constituents.  They  can  also  adduce 
with  justice  the  fact  that  in  nearly  every  campaign  more 
than  one  political  manager  has  accused  them  of  favoritism, 
only  to  retract  when  the  heat  of  the  campaign  was  over. 
The  charge  of  industrial  and  social  partisanship  they  meet 
with  a  point-blank  denial.  It  is  impossible  in  the  space  of 
this  paper  to  sift  the  evidence  pro  and  con.  Pending  action 
by  the  courts  the  only  safe  thing  to  do  is  to  look  at  the 
question  in  terms  of  tendencies  rather  than  of  facts. 

The  Associated  Press,  it  has  been  shown,  tends  to  be  a 
monopoly.  Does  it  tend  to  be  a  one-sided  monopoly? 
The  writer  believes  that  it  does.  He  believes  that  it  may 
fairly  be  said  that  the  Associated  Press  as  a  corporation  is 
inclined  to  see  things  through  conservative  spectacles,  and 
that  its  correspondents,  despite  the  very  high  average  of 
their  fairness,  tend  to  do  the  same  thing.  It  could  hardly 
be  otherwise,  although  it  is  possible  that  there  is  nothing 
deliberate  in  the  tendency.  Nearly  all  the  subscribers  to 
the  Associated  Press  are  the  most  respectable  and  success- 
ful newspaper  publishers  in  then-  neighborhoods.  They 
belong  to  that  part  of  the  community  which  has  a  stake  in 
the  settled  order  of  things ;  their  managers  are  business  men 
among  business  men;  they  have  relations  with  the  local 
magnates  of  finance  and  commerce:  naturally,  whatever 
their  political  views  may  be  (and  the  majority  of  the  pow- 
erful organs  of  the  country  are  conservative),  their  aggre- 
gate influence  tends  to  be  on  the  side  of  conservatism. 

The  tendency,  too,  is  enhanced  by  the  articles  under 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS    121 

which  the  Associated  Press  is  incorporated.  There  is 
special  provision  against  fault-finding  on  the  part  of  mem- 
bers. The  corporation  is  given  the  right  to  expel  a  mem- 
ber "for  any  conduct  on  his  part  or  the  part  of  any  one  in 
his  employ  or  connected  with  his  newspaper,  which  in  its 
absolute  discretion  it  shall  deem  of  such  a  character  as  to 
be  prejudicial  to  the  interest  and  welfare  of  the  corpora- 
tion and  its  members,  or  to  justify  such  expulsion.  The 
action  of  the  members  of  the  corporation  in  such  regard 
shall  be  final,  and  there  shall  be  no  right  of  appeal  or  review 
of  such  action."  The  Associated  Press  rightly  prides  itself 
upon  the  standing  of  its  correspondents.  The  majority  of 
them  are  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  the  matter-of-fact  re- 
spectable. In  the  nature  of  their  calling,  they  are  not  likely 
to  be  economists  or  theoretical  politicians.  In  the  case  of 
a  strike,  for  instance,  their  instinct  might  well  be  to  go  to 
the  employer  or  the  employer's  lieutenant  for  news  rather 
than  to  the  strike-leader. 

Whether  the  Associated  Press  is  a  monopoly  within  the 
meaning  of  the  anti-trust  law,  whether  it  actually  colors 
news  as  the  socialists  aver,  must  be  left  to  the  courts  to 
decide.  The  point  to  be  noticed  here  is  that  it  might  color 
news  if  it  wanted  to,  and  that  it  does  exercise  certain 
monopolistic  functions.  That  in  itself  is  a  dangerous  state 
of  affairs:  but  it  seems  to  be  one  that  might  be  rectified. 
The  Illinois  Supreme  Court  has  pointed  the  way.  The 
news-agency  is  essentially  monopolistic.  It  has  much  in 
common  with  the  ordinary  public-utility  monopoly.  It 
should  therefore  be  treated  like  a  public-utility  corpora- 
tion. It  should  be  subject  to  government  regulation  and 
supervision,  and  its  service  should  be  open  to  all  customers. 
Were  this  done,  the  Associated  Press  would  be  altered  but 
not  destroyed.  Its  useful  features  would  surely  remain 
and  its  drawbacks  as  surely  be  lessened.  The  right  of  pro- 
10 


122    THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS 

test  would  be  entirely  swept  away;  membership  would  be 
unlimited;  the  threat  of  expulsion  for  fault-finding  would 
be  automatically  removed  from  above  the  heads  of  mem- 
bers; all  newspapers  of  all  shades  would  be  free  to  apply 
the  corrective  of  criticism;  and  if  its  news  were  none  the 
less  unfair,  some  arrangement  could  presumably  be  made 
for  government  restraint. 

The  Press  Association  of  England  is  an  unlimited  coop- 
erative concern.  Any  newspaper  can  subscribe  to  it,  and 
new  subscribers  are  welcome.  Especially  in  the  provincial 
field,  it  is  as  powerful  a  factor  in  British  journalism  as  the 
Associated  Press  is  in  the  journalism  of  the  United  States, 
yet  its  very  openness  has  saved  it  from  the  taint  of  par- 
tiality. To  organize  the  Associated  Press  on  the  same  lines 
would,  of  course,  entail  hardship  to  its  present  constitu- 
ents. They  would  be  exposed  to  fierce  local  competition. 
The  value  of  their  franchises  would  dwindle.  Such  rival 
agencies  as  exist  might  be  ruined,  for  they  could  hardly 
compete  with  the  Associated  Press  in  the  open  market. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  American  journalism  would 
suffer  from  a  regulated  monopoly  of  that  kind;  and  the 
public  would  certainly  be  benefited,  for  it  would  continue 
to  enjoy  the  excellent  service  of  the  Associated  Press,  with 
its  invaluable  foreign  telegrams  and  its  comprehensive 
domestic  news;  it  would  be  safeguarded  to  no  small  extent 
from  the  danger  of  local  or  national  news-monopolies  and 
from  insidiously  tainted  news. 

Such  a  reform,  if  reform  there  has  to  be,  would,  in  a 
word,  be  constructive.  The  alternatives  to  it,  as  the  writer 
understands  the  situation,  would  be  destructive  and  em- 
pirical. The  organization  of  the  Associated  Press  would 
either  be  cut  to  pieces  or  destroyed.  There  would  thus  be 
a  chaos  of  ineffective  competition  among  either  coopera- 
tive or  commercial  press  agencies.  Equal  competition 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS    123 

among  a  number  of  cooperative  associations  would,  for 
reasons  already  explained,  mean  comparatively  ineffective 
and  weak  services.  Competition  among  commercial  agen- 
cies would  have  even  less  to  recommend  it.  The  latter 
must  by  their  nature  be  more  susceptible  to  special  influ- 
ences than  the  cooperative  agency.  They  are  controlled 
by  a  few  business  men,  not  by  their  customers.  Compet- 
ing commercial  agencies  would  almost  inevitably  come  to 
represent  competing  influences  in  public  life;  while,  if 
worse  came  to  worst,  a  commercialized  "news  trust" 
would  clearly  be  more  dangerous  than  a  cooperative  news 
trust.  The  great  reactionary  influences  of  business  would 
have  freer  play  upon  its  directors  than  they  can  have  upon 
the  directors  of  an  organization  like  the  Associated  Press. 
If  it  be  decided  that  even  the  Associated  Press  is  not  im- 
mune from  such  influences,  the  public  should,  the  writer 
believes,  think  twice  before  demanding  its  destruction,  in- 
stead  of  its  alteration  to  conform  with  the  modern  con- 
ception  of  the  public-service  corporation. 


THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS:  A  REPLY 

BY  MELVILLE   E.    STONE 
[A  letter  to  the  Editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  dated  August  1, 191k] 

AN  article  under  the  title,  "The  Problem  of  The  Asso- 
ciated Press,"  appeared  in  the  July  issue  of  the  Atlantic. 
It  was  anonymous  and  may  be  without  claim  to  regard. 
It  is  marred  by  several  mistakes  of  fact.  Some  of  them  are 
inexcusable:  the  truth  might  so  easily  have  been  learned. 
Nevertheless  it  is  desirable  that  everybody  should  know 
all  about  the  Associated  Press,  whether  it  is  an  unlawful 
and  dangerous  monopoly,  or  whether  it  is  in  the  business 
of  circulating  "tainted  news."  Its  telegrams  are  published 
in  full  or  in  abbreviated  form,  in  nearly  900  daily  news- 
papers having  an  aggregate  circulation  of  many  millions 
of  copies.  Upon  the  accuracy  of  these  news  dispatches, 
one  half  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  depend  for  the 
conduct  of  their  various  enterprises,  as  well  as  for  the  facts 
upon  which  to  base  their  opinions  of  the  activities  of  the 
world.  With  a  self-governing  nation,  it  is  all  important 
that  such  an  agency  as  the  Associated  Press  furnish  as 
nearly  as  may  be  the  truth.  To  mislead  is  an  act  of  treason. 

The  writer's  history  is  at  fault.  For  instance,  the  former 
Associated  Press  never  bought  a  controlling  share  of  the 
old-time  United  Press,  as  he  alleges.  Nor  did  the  Chicago 
Inter-Ocean  go  to  law  because  it  was  refused  admission.  It 
was  a  charter  member;  it  admittedly  violated  a  by-law, 
discipline  was  administered  and  against  this  discipline  the 
law  was  invoked,  and  a  decision  adverse  to  the  then  exist- 
ing Associated  Press  resulted.  The  assertion  that  a  "fran- 
chise to  a  newspaper  in  New  York  or  Chicago  is  worth 


THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS:  A  REPLY  125 

from  $50,000  to  $200,000,"  will  amuse  thousands  of  people 
who  know  that  five  morning  Associated  Press  newspapers 
of  Chicago,  the  Chronicle,  the  Record,  the  Times,  the  Freie 
Presse,  and  the  Inter-Ocean,  have  ceased  publication  in  the 
somewhat  recent  past,  and  their  owners  have  not  received 
a  penny  for  their  so-called  "franchises."  The  Boston 
Traveler  and  Evening  Journal  were  absorbed  and  their 
memberships  thrown  away.  The  Christian  Science  Moni- 
tor voluntarily  gave  up  its  membership  and  took  another 
service  which  it  preferred.  The  Hartford  Post,  Bridgeport 
Post,  New  Haven  Union,  and  Schenectady  Union  did  the 
same.  Cases  where  Associated  Press  papers  have  ceased 
publication  have  not  been  infrequent.  Witness  the  Wor- 
cester Spy,  St.  Paul  Globe,  Minneapolis  Times,  Denver  Re- 
publican, San  Francisco  Call,  New  Orleans  Picayune,  In- 
dianapolis Sentinel,  and  Philadelphia  Times,  as  well  as 
many  others. 

The  statement  that  the  Press  Association  of  England  is 
an  unlimited  cooperative  organization  betrays  incomplete 
information.  Instead,  it  is  a  share  company  with  an  issued 
capital  of  £49,440  sterling.  On  this  capital,  in  1913,  it  made 
£3,708.  9.  10,  or  nearly  eight  per  cent.  And  it  had  in  its 
treasury  at  the  end  of  that  year  a  surplus  of  £23,281. 19.  6, 
or  a  sum  nearly  equal  to  fifty  per  cent,  of  its  capitaliza- 
tion. It  sells  news  to  newspapers,  clubs,  hotels,  and  news- 
rooms. It  is  not,  as  is  the  Associated  Press,  a  clearing- 
house for  the  exchange  of  news.  It  gathers  all  its  informa- 
tion by  its  own  employees  and  sells  it  outright.  Finally, 
it  does  not  serve  all  applicants,  but  declines,  as  it  always 
has,  to  furnish  its  news  to  the  London  papers. 

But  there  is  a  more  important  matter.  It  is  said  that  the 
business  of  collecting  and  distributing  news  is  essentially 
monopolistic.  But  how  can  this  be?  The  field  is  an  open 
one.  A  single  reporter  may  enter  it,  and  so  may  an  associa- 


126  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS:  A  REPLY 

tion  of  reporters.  The  business  in  any  case  may  be  con- 
fined to  the  news  of  a  city  or  it  may  be  extended  to  include 
a  state,  a  nation,  or  the  world.  The  material  facilities  for 
the  transmission  of  news,  so  far  as  they  are  of  a  public  or 
quasi-public  nature,  the  mail  or  the  telegraph,  are  open  to 
the  use  of  all  on  the  same  terms.  The  subject-matter  of 
news,  events  of  general  interest,  are  not  property  and  can- 
not be  appropriated.  The  element  of  property  exists  only 
in  the  story  of  the  event  which  the  reporter  makes  and 
the  diligence  which  he  uses  to  bring  it  to  the  place  of  pub- 
lication. This  element  of  property  is  simply  the  right  of 
the  reporter  to  the  fruit  of  his  own  labor. 

The  "Recessional"  was  a  report  of  the  Queen's  Jubilee. 
It  was  made  by  Rudyard  Kipling  and  was  his  property  for 
that  reason,  to  be  disposed  of  by  him  as  he  thought  proper. 
He  might  have  copyrighted  it  and  reserved  to  himself  the 
exclusive  right  of  publication  during  the  period  of  the  copy- 
right. He  chose  rather  to  use  his  common-law  right  of  first 
publication  and  he  did  this  by  selling  it  to  the  London 
Times.  He  was  not  under  obligation,  moral  or  legal,  to 
sell  it  at  the  same  time  to  any  other  publisher. 

Every  other  reporter  stands  upon  the  same  footing  and, 
as  the  author  of  his  story,  is,  by  every  principle  of  law  and 
equity,  entitled  to  a  monopoly  of  his  manuscript  until  he 
voluntarily  assigns  it  or  surrenders  it  to  the  public.  He 
does  not  monopolize  the  news.  He  cannot  do  that,  for 
real  news  is  as  woman's  wit,  of  which  Rosalind  said, 
"Make  the  doors  upon  [it]  and  it  will  out  at  the  casement; 
shut  that  and  'twill  out  at  the  keyhole;  stop  that,  'twill 
fly  with  the  smoke  out  at  the  chimney."  The  reporter 
as  a  mere  laborer,  engaged  in  personal  service,  is  simply 
free  from  compulsion  to  give  or  sell  his  labor  to  one  seek- 
ing it.  Such  is  the  state  of  the  law  to-day. 
*  And  the  English  courts  go  further  and  uniformly  hold 


THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS:  A  REPLY  127 

that  news  telegrams  may  not  be  pirated,  even  after  pub- 
lication. In  a  dozen  British  colonies  statutory  protection 
of  such  despatches  is  given  for  varying  periods.  In  this 
country  there  have  been  a  number  of  decisions  looking 
to  the  same  end.  The  output  of  the  Associated  Press  is 
not  the  news;  it  is  a  story  of  the  news,  written  by  reporters 
employed  to  serve  the  membership.  The  organization 
issues  no  newspaper;  it  prints  nothing.  As  a  reporter,  it 
brings  its  copy  to  the  editor,  who  is  free  to  print  it,  abbre- 
viate it,  or  throw  it  away.  And  to  this  reporter's  work, 
the  reporter  and  the  members  employing  him  have,  by 
law  and  morals,  undeniably  an  exclusive  right. 

The  next  question  involves  the  integrity  of  the  Asso- 
ciated Press  service.  The  cases  of  alleged  bias  he  cites  are 
unfortunate.  Any  claim  that  the  doings  of  the  Progress- 
ives in  1912  were  "blanketed"  by  the  Associated  Press  is 
certainly  unwarranted.  Our  records  show  that  the  organ- 
ization reported  more  than  three  times  as  many  words  con- 
cerning the  activities  of  the  Progressives  as  it  did  concerning 
those  of  all  their  opponents  combined.  There  were  reasons 
for  this.  It  was  a  new  party  in  the  field,  and  naturally 
awakened  unusual  interest.  But  also,  it  should  be  said 
that  Colonel  Roosevelt  has  expert  knowledge  of  newspaper 
methods.  He  understands  the  value  of  preparing  his 
speeches  in  advance  and  furnishing  them  in  time  to  enable 
the  Associated  Press  to  send  them  to  its  members  by  mail. 
They  are  put  in  type  in  the  newspaper  offices  leisurely  and 
the  proofs  are  carefully  read.  When  one  of  his  speeches  is 
delivered,  a  word  or  two  by  telegraph  "releases"  it,  and  a 
full  and  accurate  publication  of  his  views  results.  While 
he  was  President  he  often  gave  us  his  messages  a  month  in 
advance;  they  were  mailed  to  Europe  and  to  the  Far  East, 
and  appeared  in  the  papers  abroad  the  morning  after  their 
delivery  to  Congress.  Before  he  went  to  Africa,  the 


128  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS:  A  REPLY 

speeches  he  delivered  a  year  later  at  Oxford  and  in  Paris 
were  prepared,  put  in  type,  proof-read,  and  laid  away  for 
use  when  required.  This  is  not  an  unusual  or  an  unwise 
practice.  It  assures  a  speaker  wide  publicity  and  saves 
him  the  annoyance  of  faulty  reporting.  Neither  Mr. 
Wilson  nor  Mr.  Taft  was  able  to  do  this,  although  fre- 
quently urged  to  do  so.  They  spoke  extemporaneously, 
often  late  in  the  evening,  and  under  conditions  which  made 
it  physically  impossible  to  make  a  satisfactory  report,  or 
to  transmit  it  by  wire  broadcast  over  the  country. 

As  to  the  West  Virginia  coal  strike :  a  magazine  charged 
that  the  Associated  Press  had  suppressed  the  facts  and 
that  as  a  consequence  no  one  knew  there  had  been  trouble. 
The  authors  were  indicted  for  libel.  One  witness  only  has 
yet  been  heard.  He  was  called  by  the  defense,  and  in  the 
taking  of  his  deposition  it  was  disclosed  that  at  the  date 
of  the  publication  over  93,000  words  had  been  delivered  by 
the  Associated  Press  to  the  New  York  papers.  Something 
like  60  columns  respecting  the  matter  had  been  printed. 

However,  "The  point  to  be  noticed,"  says  your  writer, 
"is  that  it  [the  Associated  Press]  might  color  news  if  it 
wanted  to,  and  that  it  does  exercise  certain  monopolistic 
functions.  That  in  itself  is  a  dangerous  state  of  affairs; 
but  it  seems  to  be  one  that  might  be  rectified."  And,  as  a 
remedy,  he  proposes  that  "its  service  should  be  open  to  all 
customers."  This  is  most  interesting.  If  the  news-service 
is  untrustworthy,  it  would  naturally  seem  plain  that  the 
activities  of  the  agency  should  be  restricted,  not  extended. 
Instead  of  enlarging  its  field  of  operations,  there  should  be, 
if  possible,  a  law  forbidding  it  to  take  in  any  new  members, 
or,  indeed,  summarily  putting  it  out  of  business.  If  the 
Associated  Press  is  corrupt,  it  is  too  large  now,  and  no  other 
newspaper  should  be  subjected  to  its  baleful  influence. 

Your  critic  adds  that  then,  "if  its  news  were  none  the 


THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS:  A  REPLY  129 

less  unfair,  some  arrangement  could  presumably  be  made 
for  government  restraint."  Since  the  battle  against  gov- 
ernment control  of  the  press  was  fought  nearly  two  cen- 
turies ago,  it  seems  scarcely  worth  while  to  waste  much 
effort  over  this  suggestion.  Censorship  by  the  king's 
agents  was  the  finest  flower  of  mediaeval  tyranny.  It  is 
hard  to  believe  that  anyone,  in  this  hour,  should  suggest 
a  return  to  it. 

Under  the  closely  censored  method  of  this  cooperative 
organization,  notwithstanding  the  wide  range  of  its  opera- 
tions, and  although  its  service  has  included  millions  of 
words  every  month,  it  is  proper  to  say  that  there  has  never 
been  a  trial  for  libel,  nor  have  the  expenses  in  connection 
with  libel  suits  exceeded  a  thousand  dollars  in  the  aggre- 
gate. This  should  be  accepted  as  some  evidence  of  the 
standard  of  accuracy  maintained. 

As  to  the  refusal  of  the  Associated  Press  to  admit  to 
membership  every  applicant,  the  suggestion  is  made  that 
this  puts  such  a  limit  on  the  number  of  newspapers  as  to 
"stifle  trade  in  the  selling  of  news."  Thus,  says  your 
critic,  the  Association  is  "  the  mother,  potential  and  some- 
times actual,  of  countless  small  monopolies."  In  reply,  it 
may  be  said  that  we  are  in  no  danger  of  a  dearth  of  news- 
papers. There  are  more  news  journals  in  the  United  States 
than  in  all  the  world  beside.  If  the  whole  foreign  world 
were  divided  into  nations  of  the  size  of  this  country,  each 
nation  would  have  but  80  daily  newspapers,  while  we  have 
over  2,400.  And  as  to  circulation,  we  issue  a  copy  of  a 
daily  paper  for  every  three  of  our  citizens  who  can  read 
and  are  over  ten  years  of  age.  With  our  methods  of  rapid 
transportation,  hundreds  of  daily  papers  might  be  dis- 
continued, and  still  leave  every  citizen  able  to  have  his 
morning  paper  delivered  at  his  breakfast  table.  Every 
morning  paper  between  New  York  and  Chicago  might  be 


130  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS:  A  REPLY 

suppressed,  and  yet,  by  the  fast  mail  trains,  papers  from 
the  two  terminal  cities  could  be  delivered  so  promptly  that 
no  one  in  the  intervening  area  would  be  left  without  the 
current  world's  news.  Every  angle  of  every  fad,  or  ism, 
outside  the  walls  of  Bedlam,  finds  an  advocate  with  the 
largest  freedom  of  expression.  Our  need  is  not  for  more 
papers,  but  for  better  papers  —  papers  issuing  truthful 
news  and  with  clearer  sense  of  perspective  as  to  news. 

Entirely  independent  of  the  Associated  Press,  or  any 
influence  it  might  have  upon  the  situation,  there  has  been 
a  noticeable  shrinkage  in  the  number  of  important  news- 
papers in  the  recent  past.  One  reason  has  been  the  lack 
of  demand  by  the  public  for  the  old-time  partisan  journal. 
Instead,  the  very  proper  requirement  has  been  for  papers 
furnishing  the  news  impartially,  and  communities  there- 
fore no  longer  divide,  as  formerly,  on  political  lines  in  their 
choice  of  newspapers.  The  increased  cost  of  white  paper 
and  of  labor  has  also  had  an  effect. 

Since  there  are  some  500  or  more  daily  newspapers  get- 
ting on  very  well  without  the  advantage  of  the  Associated 
Press  "franchises,"  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  we  have 
reached  a  stage  where  this  service  is  indispensable.  This 
is  strikingly  true  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  in  a  number 
of  cities  the  papers  making  the  largest  profits  are  those 
that  have  not,  nor  have  ever  had,  membership  in  the  Asso- 
ciated Press. 

It  will  be  agreed  at  once  that  private  right  must  ever 
give  way  to  public  good.  If  it  can  be  shown  that,  as  con- 
tended, the  national  welfare  requires  that  those  who,  with- 
out any  advantage  over  their  fellow  editors,  have  built  up 
an  efficient  cooperative  news-gathering  agency,  must  share 
the  accumulated  value  of  the  good-will  they  have  achieved, 
with  those  who  have  been  less  energetic,  we  may  have  to 
give  heed  to  the  claim.  Such  a  contention,  so  persistently 


THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS:  A  REPLY  131 

urged  as  it  has  been,  is  certainly  flattering  to  the  member- 
ship and  management  of  the  Associated  Press. 

But,  however  agreeable  it  always  is  to  divide  up  other 
people's  property,  before  settling  the  matter  there  are 
some  things  to  think  of.  First,  it  must  be  the  public  good 
that  forces  this  invasion  of  private  right,  not  the  desire 
of  someone  who,  with  an  itch  to  start  a  newspaper,  feels 
that  he  would  prefer  the  Associated  Press  service.  Second, 
the  practical  effect  of  a  rule  such  as  was  laid  down  by  the 
Illinois  Supreme  Court,  requiring  the  organization  to  ren- 
der service  to  all  applicants,  must  be  carefully  considered. 
News  is  not  a  commodity  of  the  nature  of  coal,  or  wood. 
It  is  incorporeal.  It  does  not  pass  from  seller  to  buyer  in 
the  way  ordinary  commodities  do.  Although  the  buyer 
receives  it,  the  seller  does  not  cease  to  possess  it.  In  order 
to  make  a  news-gathering  agency  possible,  it  has  been 
found  necessary  to  limit,  by  stringent  rules,  the  use  of  the 
service  by  the  member.  Thus  each  member  of  the  Asso- 
ciated Press  is  prohibited  from  making  any  use  of  the 
dispatches  furnished  him,  other  than  to  publish  them  in 
his  newspaper.  If  such  a  restriction  were  not  imposed, 
any  member,  on  receipt  of  his  news  service,  might  at  once 
set  up  an  agency  of  his  own  and  put  an  end  to  the  general 
organization .  This  rule,  as  well  as  all  disciplinary  measures , 
would  disappear  under  the  plan  proposed  by  the  critic  in 
the  Atlantic.  A  buyer  might  be  expelled,  but  to-morrow  he 
could  demand  readmission.  There  would  in  practice  no 
longer  be  members  with  a  right  of  censorship  over  the 
management;  instead,  there  would  be  cne  seller  and  an 
unlimited  number  of  buyers.  Then,  indeed,  there  would 
be  a  monopoly  of  the  worst  sort.  And  government  censor- 
ship, with  all  of  its  attendant  and  long  since  admitted 
evils,  would  follow.  Under  a  Republican  administration, 
we  should  have  a  Republican  censor;  under  a  Democratic 


132  THE  ASSOCIATED  PRESS:  A  REPLY 

administration,  a  Democratic  censor.     And  a  free  press 
would  no  longer  exist. 

Absolute  journalistic  inerrancy  is  not  possible.  But  we 
are  much  nearer  it  to-day  than  ever  before.  And  it  is 
toward  approximate  inerrancy  in  its  despatches  that  the 
Associated  Press  is  striving.  If  in  its  method  of  organiza- 
tion, or  in  its  manner  of  administration,  it  is  violating  any 
law,  or  is  making  for  evil,  then  it  should  be  punished,  or 
suppressed.  If  any  better  method  for  securing  an  hon- 
est, impartial  news  service  can  be  devised,  by  all  means 
let  us  have  it.  But  that  the  plan  proposed  would  better 
the  situation,  is  clearly  open  to  doubt. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR 

BY   PARACELSUS 

THERE  is  something  at  once  deliciously  humorous  and 
pathetic,  to  the  editor  of  a  small  daily  in  the  provinces, 
about  that  old-fashioned  phrase,  "the  liberty  of  the  press." 
It  is  another  one  of  those  matters  lying  so  near  the  marge- 
land  of  what  is  mirthful  and  what  is  sad  that  a  tilt  of  the 
mood  may  slip  it  into  either.  To  the  general,  doubtless, 
it  is  a  truth  so  obvious  that  it  is  never  questioned,  a  be- 
quest from  our  forefathers  that  has  paid  no  inheritance  tax 
to  time.  In  all  the  host  of  things  insidiously  un-American 
which  have  crept  into  our  life,  thank  Heaven!  say  these 
unconscious  Pharisees,  the  "press,"  if  somewhat  freakish, 
has  remained  free.  So  it  is  served  up  as  a  toast  at  ban- 
quets, garnished  with  florid  rhetoric;  it  is  still  heard  from 
old-fashioned  pulpits;  it  cannot  die,  even  though  the  con- 
ditions which  made  the  phrase  possible  have  passed  away. 

The  pooh-poohing  of  the  elders,  the  scoffing  of  the  ex- 
perienced, has  little  effect  upon  a  boy's  mind  when  it  tries 
to  do  away  with  so  palpable  a  truth  as  that  concerning 
the  inability  of  a  chopped-up  snake  to  die  until  sunset,  or 
that  matter-of-fact  verity  that  devil's  darning  needles  have 
little  aim  in  life  save  to  sew  up  the  ears  of  youths  and 
maidens.  So  with  that  glib  old  fantasy,  "America's  free 
and  un trammeled  press" :  it  needs  a  vast  deal  of  argument 
to  convince  an  older  public  that,  as  a  matter  to  be  accepted 
without  a  question,  it  has  no  right  to  exist.  The  condi- 
tioning clause  was  tacked  on  some  years  ago,  doubtless 
when  the  old-time  weekly  began  to  expand  into  the  modern 
small  daily.  The  weekly  was  a  periodic  pamphlet;  the 


134    CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR 

daily  disdained  its  inheritance,  and  subordinated  the  ex- 
pression of  opinion  to  the  printing  of  those  matters  from 
which  opinion  is  made.  The  cost  of  equipment  of  a  daily 
newspaper,  compared  to  the  old-fashioned  weekly,  as  a 
general  thing  makes  necessary  for  the  launching  of  such  a 
venture  a  well-organized  stock  company,  and  in  this  lies 
much  of  the  trouble. 

Confessions  imply  previous  wrong-doing.  Mine,  while 
they  are  personal  enough,  are  really  more  interesting  be- 
cause of  the  vast  number  of  others  they  incriminate.  If 
two  editors  from  lesser  cities  do  not  laugh  in  each  other's 
faces,  after  the  example  of  Cicero's  augurs,  it  is  because 
they  are  more  modern,  and  choose  to  laugh  behind  each 
other's  backs.  So,  in  turning  state's  evidence,  I  feel  less 
a  coward  than  a  reformer. 

What  circumstance  has  led  me  to  believe  concerning  the 
newspaper  situation  in  a  hundred  and  one  small  cities  of 
this  country  is  so  startling  in  its  unexplained  brevity, 
that  I  scarce  dare  parade  it  as  a  prelude  to  my  confessions. 
So  much  of  my  experience  is  predicated  upon  it  that  I  do 
not  dare  save  it  for  a  peroration.  Here  it  is,  then,  some- 
what more  than  half-truth,  somewhat  less  than  the  truth 
itself:  "A  newspaper  in  a  small  city  is  not  a  legitimate 
business  enterprise."  That  seems  bold  and  bare  enough 
to  stamp  me  as  sensational,  does  it  not?  Hear,  then,  the 
story  of  my  Herald,  knowing  that  it  is  the  story  of  other 
Heralds.  The  Herald's  story  is  mine,  and  my  story,  I 
dare  say,  is  that  of  many  others.  To  the  facts,  then. 
I  speak  with  authority,  being  one  of  the  scribes. 


I  chose  newspaper  work  in  my  native  city,  Pittsburg, 
mainly  because  I  liked  to  write.    I  went  into  it  after  my 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR     135 

high-school  days,  spent  a  six  months'  apprenticeship  on  a 
well-known  paper,  left  it  for  another,  and  in  five  years' 
hard  work  had  risen  from  the  reportorial  ranks  to  that  of 
a  subordinate  editorial  writer  —  a  dubious  rise.  Hard 
work  had  not  threshed  out  ambition:  the  few  grains  left 
sprouted.  The  death  of  an  uncle  and  an  unexpected  legacy 
fructified  my  desire.  I  became  zealous  to  preach  crusades; 
to  stamp  my  own  individuality,  my  own  ideals,  upon  the 
"people";  in  short,  to  own  and  run  a  newspaper.  It  was 
a  buxom  fancy,  a  day-dream  of  many  another  like  myself. 
A  rapid  rise  had  obtained  for  me  the  summit  of  reasonable 
expectation  in  the  matter  of  salary;  but  I  then  thought,  as 
indeed  I  do  still,  that  the  sum  in  one's  envelope  o'  Mondays 
is  no  criterion  of  success.  Personal  ambition  to  "mould 
opinion,"  as  the  quaint  untruth  has  it,  as  well  as  the  com- 
mercial side  of  owning  a  newspaper,  made  me  look  about 
over  a  wide  field,  seeking  a  city  which  really  needed  a  new 
newspaper.  The  work  was  to  be  in  a  chosen  field,  and  to 
be  one's  own  taskmaster  is  worth  more  than  salary.  As 
I  prospected,  I  saw  no  possible  end  to  the  venture  save 
that  of  every  expectation  fulfilled. 

I  found  a  goodly  town  (of  course  I  cannot  name  it)  that 
was  neither  all  future  nor  all  past;  a  growing  place,  be- 
lieved in  by  capitalists  and  real-estate  men.  It  was  well 
railroaded,  in  the  coal  fields,  near  to  waterways  and  to 
glory.  It  was  developing  itself  and  being  developed  by 
outside  capital.  It  had  a  newspaper,  a  well-established 
affair,  whose  old  equipment  I  laughed  at.  It  needed  a  new 
one.  My  opening  was  found.  The  city  would  grow;  I 
would  grow  up  with  it.  The  promise  of  six  years  ago  has 
been  in  part  fulfilled.  I  have  no  reason  to  regret  my 
choosing  the  city  I  did. 

I  went  back  to  Pittsburg,  consulted  various  of  the  great, 
obtained  letters  to  prominent  men  high  in  the  political 


136    CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR 

faith  I  intended  to  follow,  went  back  to  my  town  armed 
with  the  letters,  and  talked  it  over.  They  had  been  con- 
sidering the  matter  of  a  daily  paper  there  to  represent  their 
faith  and  themselves,  and  after  much  dickering  a  company 
was  formed.  I  found  I  could  buy  the  weekly  Herald,  a 
nice  property  whose  "good  will"  was  worth  having.  Its 
owner  was  not  over-anxious  to  sell,  so  drove  a  good  bar- 
gain. As  a  weekly  the  paper  for  forty-three  years  had  been 
gospel  to  many;  I  would  make  it  daily  gospel  to  more.  In 
giving  $5,500  for  it  I  knew  I  was  paying  well,  but  it  had  a 
great  name  and  a  wide  circulation. 

I  saw  no  necessity  of  beginning  on  a  small  scale.  People 
are  not  dazzled  in  this  way.  I  wanted  a  press  that  folk 
would  come  in  and  see  run,  and  as  my  rival  had  no  lino- 
types, that  was  all  the  more  reason  why  I  should  have  two. 
Expensive  equipments  are  necessary  for  newspapers  when 
they  intend  to  do  great  works  and  the  public  is  eager  to 
see  what  is  going  to  happen.  All  this  took  money,  more 
money  than  I  had  thought  it  would.  But,  talking  the  mat- 
ter over  with  my  new  friends  and  future  associates,  I  con- 
vinced them  that  any  economy  was  false  economy  at  the 
start.  But  when  I  started  I  found  that  I  owned  but  forty 
per  cent  of  the  Herald  Publishing  Company's  stock.  I 
was  too  big  with  the  future  to  care.  The  sixty  per  cent  was 
represented  by  various  politicians.  That  was  six  years  ago. 

It  does  not  do  in  America,  much  less  in  the  Atlantic,  to 
be  morosely  pessimistic.  At  most  one  can  be  regretful. 
And  yet  why  should  I  be  regretful?  You  have  seen  me 
settle  in  my  thriving  city;  see  me  now.  I  have  my  own 
home,  a  place  of  honor  in  the  community,  the  company  of 
the  great.  You  see  me  married,  with  enough  to  live  on, 
enough  to  entertain  with,  enough  to  afford  a  bit  of  travel 
now  and  then.  I  still  "run"  the  Herald:  it  pays  me  my 
own  salary  (my  stockholders  have  never  interfered  with 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR     137 

the  business  management  of  the  paper),  and  were  I  insist- 
ent, I  might  have  a  consular  position  of  importance,  should 
the  particular  set  of  politicians  I  uphold  (my  "gang,"  as 
my  rival  the  Bulletin  says)  revert  to  power.  There  is  food 
in  my  larder,  there  are  flowers  in  my  garden.  I  carry 
enough  insurance  to  enable  my  small  family  to  do  without 
me  and  laugh  at  starvation.  I  am  but  thirty-four  years 
old.  In  short,  I  have  a  competence  in  a  goodly  little  city. 
Why  should  I  not  rejoice  with  Stevenson  that  I  have  "some 
rags  of  honor  left,"  and  go  about  in  middle  age  with  my 
head  high?  Who  of  my  schoolmates  has  done  better? 

Is  it  nothing,  then,  to  see  hope  dwindle  and  die  away? 
My  regret  is  not  pecuniary:  it  is  old-fashionedly  moral. 
Where  are  those  high  ideals  with  which  I  set  about  this 
business?  I  dare  not  look  them  in  their  waxen  faces.  I 
have  acquired  immunity  from  starvation  by  selling  under- 
handedly  what  I  had  no  right  to  sell.  Some  may  think  me 
the  better  American.  But  P.  T.  Barnum's  dictum  about 
the  innate  love  Americans  have  for  a  hoax  is  really  a  serious 
matter,  when  the  truth  is  told.  Mr.  Barnum  did  not  leave 
a  name  and  a  fortune  because  he  befooled  the  public.  If 
now  and  then  he  gave  them  Cardiff  giants  and  white  ele- 
phants, he  also  gave  them  a  brave  display  in  three  crowded 
rings.  I  have  dealt  almost  exclusively  with  the  Cardiff 
giants. 

My  regret  is,  then,  a  moral  one.  I  bought  something 
the  nature  of  which  did  not  dawn  upon  me  until  late;  I 
felt  environment  adapt  me  to  it  little  by  little.  The  proc- 
ess was  gradual,  but  I  have  not  the  excuse  that  it  was  un- 
conscious. There  is  the  sting  in  the  matter.  I  can  scarcely 
plead  ignorance. 

Somewhere  in  a  scrapbook,  even  now  beginning  to  yel- 
low, I  have  pasted,  that  it  may  not  escape  me  (as  if  it 
could!),  my  first  editorial  announcing  to  the  good  world  my 
11 


138    CONFESSIONS  OP  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR 

intent  with  the  Herald.  Let  me  quote  from  the  mocking, 
double-leaded  thing.  I  know  the  words.  I  know  even 
now  the  high  hope  which  gave  them  birth.  I  know  how 
enchanting  the  vista  was  unfolding  into  the  future.  I  can 
see  how  stern  my  boyish  face  was,  how  warm  my  blood. 
With  a  blare  of  trumpets  I  announced  my  mission.  With  a 
mustering  day  of  the  good  old  stock  phrases  used  on  such 
occasions  I  marshaled  my  metaphors.  In  making  my  bow, 
gravely  and  earnestly,  I  said,  among  other  things :  — 

"Without  fear  or  favor,  serving  only  the  public,  the 
Herald  will  be  at  all  times  an  intelligent  medium  of  news 
and  opinions  for  an  intelligent  community.  Bowing  the 
knee  to  no  clique  or  faction,  keeping  in  mind  the  great 
imperishable  standards  of  American  manhood,  the  noble 
traditions  upon  which  the  framework  of  our  country  is 
grounded,  the  Herald  will  champion,  not  the  weak,  not 
the  strong,  but  the  right.  It  will  spare  no  expense  in  gath- 
ering news,  and  it  will  give  all  the  news  all  of  the  time.  It 
will  so  guide  its  course  that  only  the  higher  interests  of 
the  city  are  served,  and  will  be  absolutely  fearless.  Inde- 
pendent in  politics,  it  will  freely  criticise  when  occasion 
demands.  By  its  adherence  to  these  principles  may  it 
stand  or  fall." 

But  why  quote  more?  You  have  all  read  them,  though 
I  doubt  if  you  have  read  one  more  sincere.  I  felt  myself 
a  force,  the  Herald  the  expression  of  a  force;  an  entity,  the 
servant  of  other  forces.  My  paper  was  to  be  all  that  other 
papers  were  not.  My  imagination  carried  me  to  sublime 
heights.  This  was  six  years  ago. 


ii 

Events  put  a  check  on  my  runaway  ambition  in  forty- 
eight  hours.    The  head  of  the  biggest  clothing  house,  and 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR     139 

the  largest  advertiser  in  the  city,  called  on  me.  I  received 
him  magnificently  in  my  new  office,  motioning  him  to  take 
a  chair.  I  can  see  him  yet  —  stout,  prosperous,  and  to 
the  point.  As  he  talked,  he  toyed  with  a  great  seal  that 
hung  from  a  huge  hawser-like  watch-chain. 

"Say,"  said  he,  refusing  my  chair,  "just  keep  out  a  little 
item  you  may  get  hold  of  to-day."  His  manner  was  the 
same  with  me  as  with  a  salesman  in  his  "gents'  "  under- 
clothing department. 

"Concerning?"  I  asked  pleasantly. 

"  Oh,  there 's  a  friend  of  mine  got  arrested  to-day.  Some 
farmer  had  him  took  in  for  fraud  or  something.  He  '11  make 
good,  I  guess;  I  know,  in  fact.  He  ain't  a  bad  fellow,  and 
it  would  hurt  him  if  this  got  printed." 

I  asked  him  for  particulars;  saw  a  reporter  who  had  the 
story;  learned  that  the  man  was  a  sharp-dealer  with  a 
bad  reputation,  who  had  been  detected  in  an  attempt  to 
cheat  a  poor  farmer  out  of  $260  —  a  bare-faced  fraud 
indeed.  I  learned  that  the  man  had  long  been  suspected 
by  public  opinion  of  semi-legal  attempts  to  rob  the  "wid- 
ow and  the  orphan,"  and  that  at  last  there  was  a  chance 
of  "showing  him  up."  I  went  back  with  a  bold  face. 

"  I  find,  though  the  case  has  not  been  tried,  that  the  man 
is  undoubtedly  guilty." 

"Guilty?"  said  my  advertiser.  "What  of  that?  He'll 
settle." 

"That  hardly  lessens  the  guilt."    I  smiled. 

The  clothing  man  looked  astounded.  "  But  if  you  print 
that  he'll  be  ruined,"  he  sputtered. 

"From  all  I  can  learn,  so  much  the  better,"  I  answered. 

Then  my  man  swore.  "See  here,"  he  said,  when  he  got 
back  to  written  language.  "He's  just  making  his  living; 
you  ain't  got  no  right  to  stop  a  man's  earning  his  living. 


140    CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR 

It  ain't  none  of  any  newspaper's  business.  Just  a  private 
affair  between  him  and  the  farmer,  and  he'll  settle." 

"I  don't  see  how,"  I  put  in  somewhat  warmly,  "it  is  n't 
the  business  of  a  newspaper  to  tell  its  public  of  a  dangerous 
man,  arrested  for  fraud,  caught  in  his  own  net  so  badly 
that  he  is  willing  to  settle,  as  you  claim.  It  is  my  obvious 
duty  to  my  constituents  to  print  such  a  case.  From  the 
news  point  of  view—  I  was  going  on  smoothly,  but 
he  stepped  up  and  shook  his  fist  in  my  face. 

"Constituents?  Ain't  I  a  constituent?  Don't  I  pay 
your  newspaper  for  more  advertising  than  any  one  else? 
Ain't  I  your  biggest  constituent?  Say,  young  man,  you  're 
too  big  for  this  town.  Don't  try  to  bully  me ! "  he  suddenly 
screamed.  "Don't  you  dare  bully  me!  Don't  you  dare 
try  it.  I  see  what  you  want.  You're  trying  to  blackmail 
me,  you  are ;  you  're  trying  to  work  me  for  more  advertis- 
ing; you  want  money  out  of  me.  That  game  don't  go;  not 
with  me  it  don't.  I'll  have  you  arrested." 

And  he  talked  as  though  he  believed  it! 

Then  he  said  he  'd  never  pay  me  another  cent,  might  all 
manner  of  things  happen  to  his  soul  if  he  did.  He'd  go  to 
the  Bulletin,  and  double  his  space.  The  man  was  his  friend, 
and  he  had  asked  but  a  reasonable  request,  and  I  had  tried 
to  blackmail  him.  He  worked  that  blackmail  in  every 
other  sentence.  Then  he  strode  out,  slamming  the  door. 

The  "little  item"  was  not  printed  in  the  Herald  (nor  in 
the  Bulletin,  more  used  to  such  requests),  and,  as  he  had 
said,  he  was  my  biggest  advertiser.  It  was  my  first  experi- 
ence with  the  advertiser  with  a  request:  for  this  reason  I 
have  given  the  incident  fully.  It  recurred  every  week.  I 
grew  to  think  little  of  it  soon.  "Think  of  how  his  children 
will  feel,"  say  the  friends  of  some  one  temporarily  lodged 
in  the  police  station.  "  Think  of  what  the  children  of  some 
one  this  man  will  swindle  next  will  say,"  is  what  I  might 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR     141 

answer.  But  I  don't,  —  not  if  an  advertiser  requests  other- 
wise. As  I  have  grown  to  phrase  the  matter,  a  newspaper 
is  a  contrivance  which  meets  its  pay-roll  by  selling  space 
to  advertisers :  render  it  therefore  agreeable  to  those  who 
make  its  existence  possible.  Less  jesuitically  it  may  be 
put  —  the  ultimate  editor  of  a  small  newspaper  is  the 
advertiser,  the  biggest  advertiser  is  the  politician.  This 
is  a  maxim  that  experience  has  ground  with  its  heel  into 
the  fabric  of  my  soul. 

We  all  remember  Emerson's  brilliantly  un-New-England 
advice,  "  Hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star."  This  saying  is  of  no 
value  to  newspapers,  for  they  find  stars  poor  motive  power. 
Theoretically,  it  must  be  granted  that  newspapers,  of  all 
business  ventures,  should  properly  be  hitched  to  a  star. 
Yet  I  have  found  that,  if  any  hitching  is  to  be  done,  it  must 
be  to  the  successful  politician.  Amending  Mr.  Emerson, 
I  have  found  it  the  best  rule  to  "yoke  your  newspaper  to 
the  politician  in  power." 

This,  then,  is  what  a  small  newspaper  does:  sells  its 
space  to  the  advertiser,  its  policy  to  the  politician.  It  is 
smooth  sailing  save  when  these  two  forces  conflict,  and 
then  Scylla  and  Charybdis  were  joys  to  the  heart.  Let 
us  look  into  the  advertiser  part  of  the  business  a  bit  more 
closely. 

The  advertiser  seeks  the  large  circulation.  The  biggest 
advertiser  seeks  the  cheapest  people.  Thus  is  a  small 
newspaper  (the  shoe  will  pinch  the  feet  of  the  great  as  well) 
forced,  in  order  to  survive,  to  pander  to  the  Most  Low. 
The  man  of  culture  does  not  buy  $4.99  overcoats,  the 
woman  of  culture  27-cent  slippers.  The  newspaper  must 
see  that  it  reaches  those  who  do.  This  is  one  of  the  saddest 
matters  in  the  whole  business.  The  Herald  started  with  a 
circulation  slightly  over  2,000.  I  found  that  my  town  was 
near  enough  to  two  big  cities  for  the  papers  published  there 


142    CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR 

to  enter  my  field.  I  could  not  hope  to  rival  their  tele- 
graphic features,  and  I  soon  saw  that,  if  the  Herald  was  to 
succeed,  it  must  .pay  strict  attention  to  local  news.  My 
rival  stole  its  telegraphic  news  bodily;  I  paid  for  a  service. 
The  people  seemed  to  care  little  for  attempted  assassina- 
tions of  the  Shah,  but  they  were  intensely  interested  in 
pinochle  parties  in  the  seventh  ward.  I  gave  them  pino- 
chle parties.  Still  my  circulation  diminished.  My  rival 
regained  all  that  I  had  taken  from  him  at  the  start.  I 
wondered  why,  and  compared  the  papers.  I  "set"  more 
matter  than  he.  The  great  difference  was  that  my  head- 
lines were  smaller  and  my  editorial  page  larger  than  his. 
Besides,  his  tone  was  much  lower:  he  printed  rumor,  made 
news  to  deny  it  —  did  a  thousand  and  one  things  that  kept 
his  paper  "breezy." 

I  put  in  bigger  headlines  —  outdid  him,  in  fact.  I  al- 
most abolished  my  editorial  page,  making  of  it  an  attempt 
to  amuse,  not  to  instruct.  I  printed  every  little  person- 
ality, every  rumor  that  my  staff  could  get  hold  of  in  their 
tours.  The  result  came  slowly,  but  surely.  Success  came 
when  I  exaggerated  every  little  petty  scandal,  every  row 
in  a  church  choir,  every  hint  of  a  disturbance.  I  compro- 
mised four  libel  suits,  and  ran  my  circulation  up  to  3,200 
in  eleven  months. 

Then  I  formed  some  more  conclusions.  I  evolved  a  news- 
paper law  out  of  the  matter  and  the  experience  of  some 
brothers  in  the  craft  in  small  cities  near  by.  Briefly,  I 
stated  it  in  this  wise:  The  worse  a  paper  is,  the  more  influ- 
ence it  has.  To  gain  influence,  be  wholly  bad. 

This  is  no  paradox,  nor  does  it  reflect  particularly  upon 
the  public.  There  is  reason  for  it  in  plenty.  Take  the  ably 
edited  paper,  which  glories  in  its  editorial  page,  in  the  clean 
exposition  of  an  honest  policy,  in  high  ideas  put  in  good 
English,  and  you  will  find  a  paper  which  has  a  small 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR     143 

clientele  in  a  provincial  town ;  or,  if  it  has  readers,  it  will 
have  small  influence.  Say  that  it  strikes  the  reader  at 
breakfast,  and  the  person  who  has  leisure  to  breakfast  is 
the  person  who  has  time  for  editorials,  and  the  expression 
of  that  paper's  opinion  is  carefully  read.  Should  these 
opinions  square  with  the  preconceived  ideas  of  the  reader, 
the  editorials  are  "great";  if  not,  they  are  "rotten."  In 
other  words,  the  man  who  reads  carefully  written  edito- 
rials is  the  man  whose  opinion  is  formed  —  the  man  of 
culture,  and  therefore  of  prejudice.  Doubtless  he  is  as 
well  acquainted  with  conditions  as  the  writer;  perhaps  bet- 
ter acquainted.  When  a  man  does  have  opinions  in  a 
small  city,  he  is  quite  likely  to  have  strong  ones.  A  flitting 
editorial  is  not  the  thing  to  change  them.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  man  who  has  little  time  to  read  editorials,  or 
perhaps  little  inclination,  is  just  the  man  who  might  be 
influenced  by  them  if  read.  Hence  well-written  editorials 
on  a  small  daily  are  wasted  thunder  in  great  part,  an  un- 
economic expenditure  of  force. 

When  local  politics  are  at  fever-heat,  a  different  aspect 
of  affairs  is  often  seen :  editorials  are  generally  read,  not  so 
much  as  expressions  of  opinion,  but  as  party  attack  and 
defense.  During  periods  of  political  quiet  the  aim  of  most 
editorial  pages  is  to  amuse  or  divert.  The  advertiser  has 
noted  the  decadence  of  the  editorial  page,  and  as  a  general 
thing  makes  a  violent  protest  if  the  crying  of  his  wares  is 
made  to  emanate  from  this  poor,  despised  portion  of  the 
paper.  An  advertisement  on  a  local  page  is  worth  much 
more,  and  he  pays  more  for  the  privilege. 

So  I  learned  another  lesson.  I  shifted,  as  my  successful 
contemporaries  have  done,  my  centre  of  editorial  gravity 
from  its  former  high  position  to  my  first  and  local  pages. 
I  now  editorialize  by  suggestion.  News  now  carries  its 
own  moral,  the  bias  I  wish  it  to  show.  This  requires  no 


144    CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR 

less  skill  than  the  writing  of  editorials,  and,  greatly  as  I 
deplore  it,  I  find  the  results-  pleasing.  Does  the  Herald 
wish  to  denounce  a  public  official?  Into  a  dozen  articles 
is  the  venom  inserted.  Slyly,  subtly,  and  ofttimes  openly 
do  news  articles  point  the  obvious  moral.  The  "Acqua 
Tofana"  of  journalism  is  ready  to  be  used  when  occasion 
demands,  and  this  is  very  often.  Innuendo  is  common,  the 
stiletto  is  inserted  quietly  and  without  warning,  and  tac- 
tics a  man  would  shun  may  be  used  by  a  newspaper  with 
little  or  no  adverse  comment.  I  mastered  the  philosophy 
of  the  indirect.  I  gained  my  ends  by  carefully  coloring  my 
news  to  the  ends  and  policies  of  the  paper.  Nor  am  I 
altogether  to  blame.  My  paper  was  supposed  to  have  in- 
fluence. When  I  wrote  careful  and  patient  editorials,  it 
had  none.  I  saw  that  the  public  mind  must  be  enfiladed, 
ambushed,  and  I  adopted  those  primary  American  tactics 
of  Indian  warfare:  shot  from  behind  tree  trunks,  spared  not 
the  slain,  and  from  the  covert  of  a  news  item  sent  out 
screeching  savages  upon  the  unsuspecting  public.  Edi- 
torial warfare  as  conducted  fifty  years  ago  is  obsolete;  its 
methods  are  as  antiquated  to-day  as  is  the  artillery  of  that 
age. 

in 

I  have  called  the  Herald  my  own  at  different  times  in 
this  article.  I  conceived  it,  established  it,  built  it  up.  It 
stands  to-day  as  the  result  of  my  work.  True,  my  money 
was  not  the  only  capital  it  required,  but  mine  was  the  hand 
that  reared  it.  I  found,  to  my  great  chagrin,  that  few 
people  in  the  city  considered  me  other  than  a  hired  servant 
of  the  political  organization  that  aided  in  establishing  the 
Herald.  It  was  an  "organ,"  a  something  which  stood  to 
the  world  as  the  official  utterance  of  this  political  set. 
"Organs,"  in  newspaper  parlance,  properly  have  but  one 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR     145 

function.  Mine  was  evidently  to  explain  or  attack,  as  the 
case  might  be.  To  the  politicians  who  helped  start  the 
Herald  the  paper  was  a  political  asset.  It  could  on  occa- 
sion be  a  club  or  a  lever,  as  the  situation  demanded.  I  had 
been  led  to  expect  no  personal  intrusion.  "Just  keep 
straight  with  the  party ' '  was  all  that  was  asked.  But  never 
was  constancy  so  unfaltering  as  that  expected  of  the 
Herald.  It  must  not  print  this  because  it  was  true;  it  must 
print  that  because  it  was  untrue. 

I  had  been  six  months  in  the  city,  when  I  overheard  a 
conversation  in  a  street  car.  "Oh,  I'll  fix  the  Herald  all 
right.  I  know  Johnny  X,"  said  one  man.  That  was  nice 
of  Johnny  X's  friend,  I  thought.  The  Bulletin  accused  me 
of  not  daring  to  print  certain  matters.  I  was  ashamed, 
humiliated.  Between  the  friends  of  Johnny  X  and  the 
friends  of  others,  I  saw  myself  in  my  true  light.  Johnny 
X,  by  the  way,  a  noisy  ward  politician,  owned  just  one 
share  in  the  Herald;  but  that  gave  his  friends  the  right  to 
ask  him  to  "fix"  it,  nevertheless. 

I  consulted  with  a  wise  man,  a  real  leader,  a  man  of  ex- 
perience and  a  warm  heart.  He  heard  me  and  laughed, 
patting  me  on  the  shoulder  to  humor  me.  "You  want 
that  printing,  don't  you?"  he  asked. 

I  admitted  that  I  did.    I  had  counted  on  it. 

"Then,"  said  my  adviser,  "I  wouldn't  offend  Johnny 
X,  if  I  were  you.  He  controls  the  supervisor  in  his  ward." 

I  began  to  see  a  great  light,  and  I  have  needed  no  other 
illumination  since.  This  matter  of  public  printing  had 
been  promised  me.  I  knew  it  was  necessary.  I  saw  that, 
inasmuch  as  it  was  given  out  by  the  lowest  politicians  in 
the  town,  I  escaped  easily  if  I  paid  as  my  price  the  indul- 
gence of  the  various  Johnnies  X  who  had  "influence."  I 
was  the  paid  supernumerary  of  the  party,  yet  had  to  bear 
its  mistakes  and  follies,  its  weak  men  and  their  weaker 


146    CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR 

friends,  upon  my  poor  editorial  back.  I  realized  it  from 
that  moment;  I  should  have  seen  it  before.  But  for  all 
that,  my  cheeks  burned  for  days,  and  my  teeth  set  when- 
ever I  faced  the  thought.  I  don't  mind  it  in  the  least  now. 

So  at  the  end  of  a  year  and  a  half  I  saw  a  few  more  things. 
I  saw  that  by  being  a  good  boy  and  adaptable  to  "fixing" 
I  could  earn  thirty-five  dollars  a  week  with  less  work  than 
I  could  earn  forty-five  dollars  in  a  big  city.  I  saw  that  the 
Herald  as  a  business  proposition  was  a  failure;  that  is,  it 
was  not,  even  under  the  most  advantageous  conditions, 
the  money-maker  that  I  at  first  thought  it  to  be.  I  saw 
that  if  the  city  grew,  and  if  there  were  no  more  rivals,  if 
there  were  a  hundred  advantageous  conditions,  it  might 
make  several  thousand  dollars  a  year,  besides  paying  me 
a  bigger  salary.  I  was  very  much  disheartened.  Then 
there  came  a  turn. 

I  saw  the  business  part  of  the  proposition  very  clearly. 
I  must  play  in  with  my  owners,  the  party;  and  in  turn  my 
owners  would  support  me  nearly  as  well  when  they  were 
out  of  power  as  they  could  when  ruling.  Revenue  came 
from  the  city,  the  county,  the  state,  all  at  " legal' '  rates. 
I  began  to  see  why  these  "legal"  rates  were  high,  some 
five  times  higher  than  those  of  ordinary  advertising  for 
such  a  paper  as  the  Herald.  The  state,  when  paying  its 
advertising  bill,  must  pay  the  Herald  five  times  the  rate 
any  clothing  advertiser  could  get.  The  reason  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  see.  All  over  the  state  and  country  there  are  papers 
just  like  the  Herald,  controlled  by  little  cliques  of  politi- 
cians, who,  too  miserly  to  support  the  necessary  losses, 
make  the  people  pay  for  them.  Any  attempt  to  lower  the 
legal  rate  in  any  state  legislature  would  call  up  innumerable 
champions  of  the  "press,"  gentlemen  all  interested  in  their 
newspapers  at  home.  The  people  pay  more  than  a  cent 
for  their  penny  papers.  It  is  the  tax-payer  who  supports 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR     147 

a  thousand  and  one  unnecessary  "organs."  The  politi- 
cians are  wise,  after  all. 

So  I  got  my  perspective.  I  was  paid  to  play  the  political 
game  of  others.  I  had  to  play  it  supported  by  indirect 
bribes.  As  a  straight  business  proposition,  —  that  is, 
without  any  state  or  city  advertising,  tax  sales,  printing 
of  the  proceedings,  and  the  like,  —  the  Herald  could  not 
live  out  a  year.  But  by  refusing  to  say  many  things,  and 
by  saying  many  more,  I  could  get  such  share  of  these 
matters  as  would  support  the  paper.  In  my  second  year, 
near  its  close,  I  saw  that  I  was  really  a  property,  a  chattel, 
a  something  bought  and  sold.  I  was  being  trafficked  with 
to  my  loss.  My  friends  bought  me  with  public  printing, 
and  sold  me  for  their  own  ends.  I  saw  that  they  had  the 
best  of  the  bargain. 

I  could  do  better  without  the  middlemen.  I  determined 
to  make  my  own  bargain  with  the  devil  for  my  own  soul. 
It  was  a  brilliant  thought,  but  a  bitter  one.  I  determined 
to  be  a  Sir  John  Hawkwood,  and  sell  my  editorial  mer- 
cenaries to  the  highest  bidder.  Only  the  weak  are  gregari- 
ous, I  thought  with  Nietzsche.  If  I  could  not  put  a  name 
upon  my  actions,  at  least  I  could  put  a  price.  I  made  a 
loan,  grabbed  up  some  Herald  stock  cheaply,  and  owned 
at  last  over  fifty  per  cent  of  my  own  paper.  Now,  I 
thought,  I  will  at  least  make  money. 

I  knew  at  just  that  time,  that  my  own  party,  joined 
with  the  enemy,  was  much  interested  in  a  contract  the 
city  was  about  to  make  with  a  lighting  company,  a  long- 
term  contract  at  an  exorbitant  price.  No  opposition  was 
expected.  The  city  council  had  been  "seen,"  the  reform- 
ers silenced.  I  knew  some  of  the  particulars.  I  knew 
that  both  parties  were  gaining  at  the  public  expense,  to 
their  own  profit  and  the  tremendous  profit  of  the  gas  com- 
pany. I,  fearless  in  my  new  control,  sent  out  a  small 


148    CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR 

editorial  feeler,  a  little  suggestion  about  municipal  own- 
ership. This  time  my  editorial  did  have  influence.  No 
mango  tree  of  an  Indian  juggler  blossomed  quicker.  I  was 
called  upon  one  hour  after  the  paper  was  out.  What  in 
the  name  of  all  unnamable  did  I  mean?  I  laughed.  I 
pointed  out  the  new  holdings  of  stock  I  had  acquired. 
What  did  the  gentlemen  mean?  They  didn't  know  — 
not  then. 

I  had  a  very  pleasant  call  from  the  gas  company's  at- 
torney the  next  day.  He  was  a  most  agreeable  fellow,  a 
man  of  parts,  assuredly.  I,  a  conscious  chattel,  would  now 
appraise  myself.  I  waited,  letting  the  pleasantry  flow  by 
in  a  gentle  stream.  By  the  way,  suggested  my  new  friend, 
why  did  n't  I  try  for  the  printing  of  the  gas  company? 
It  was  quite  a  matter.  My  friend  was  surprised  that 
the  Herald  had  so  complete  a  job-printing  plant.  The  gas 
company  had  all  of  its  work  done  out  of  town,  at  a  high 
rate,  he  thought.  He  would  use  his  influence,  etc.,  etc. 
Actually,  I  felt  very  important!  All  this  to  come  out  of 
a  little  editorial  on  municipal  ownership !  The  Herald  did 
n't  care  for  printing  so  very  much,  I  said.  But  I  would 
think  it  over. 

The  next  day  I  followed  up  my  municipal  ownership  edi- 
torial. It  was  my  answer.  I  waited  for  theirs.  I  waited 
in  vain.  I  had  overreached  myself.  This  was  humiliation 
indeed,  and  it  aroused  every  bit  of  ire  and  revenge  in  me. 
I  boldly  launched  out  on  a  campaign  against  the  dragon. 
I  would  see  if  the  "press"  could  be  held  so  cheaply.  I 
printed  statistics  of  the  price  of  lighting  in  other  cities.  I 
exposed  the  whole  scheme.  I  stood  for  the  people  at  last! 
My  early  fire  came  back.  We  would  see:  the  people  and 
the  Herald  against  a  throttling  corporation  and  a  gang  of 
corrupt  aldermen. 

Then  the  other  side  got  into  the  war.    I  went  to  the  bank 


CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR     149 

to  renew  a  note.  I  had  renewed  it  a  dozen  times  before. 
But  the  bank  had  seen  the  Gorgon  and  turned  to  stone. 
I  digged  deep  and  met  the  note.  A  big  law  firm  which  had 
given  me  all  its  business  began  to  seek  out  the  Bulletin. 
One  or  two  advertisers  dropped  out.  Some  unseen  hand 
began  to  foment  a  strike.  Were  the  banks,  the  bar,  and, 
worst  of  all,  the  labor  unions,  in  the  pay  of  a  gas  company? 
It  was  exhilarating  to  be  with  "the  people,"  but  exhilara- 
tion does  not  meet  pay-rolls.  I  may  state  that  I  am  now 
doing  the  gas  company's  printing  at  a  very  fair  rate. 

I  saw  that  the  policy  was  a  good  one,  nevertheless.  I 
also  saw  that  it  could  not  be  carried  to  the  extreme.  So  I 
have  become  merely  threatening.  I  have  learned  never 
to  overstep  my  bounds.  I  take  my  lean  years  and  my  fat 
years,  still  a  hireling,  but  having  somewhat  to  say  about 
my  market  value.  What  provincial  paper  does  not  have 
the  same  story  to  tell? 

My  public  does  n't  care  for  good  writing.  It  has  no 
regard  for  reason.  During  one  political  campaign  I  tried 
reason.  That  is,  I  did  n't  denounce  the  adversary.  Ad- 
mitting he  had  some  very  good  points,  I  showed  why  the 
other  man  had  better  ones.  The  general  impression  was 
that  the  Herald  had  "flopped,"  just  because  I  did  not  abuse 
my  party's  opponent,  but  tried  to  defeat  him  with  logic! 
A  paper  is  always  admired  for  its  backbone,  and  backbone 
is  its  refusal  to  see  two  sides  to  a  question. 

I  have  reached  the  "masses."  I  tell  people  what  they 
knew  beforehand,  and  thus  flatter  them.  Aiming  to  in- 
struct them,  I  should  offend.  God  is  with  the  biggest  cir- 
culations, and  we  must  have  them,  even  if  we  appeal  to 
class  prejudice  now  and  then. 

I  can  occasionally  foster  a  good  work,  almost  under- 
handedly,  it  would  seem.  I  take  little  pleasure  in  it.  The 
various  churches,  hospitals,  the  library,  all  expect  to  be 


150     CONFESSIONS  OF  A  PROVINCIAL  EDITOR 

coddled  indiscriminately  and  without  returning  any  thanks 
whatever.  I  formerly  had  as  much  railroad  transporta- 
tion as  I  wished.  I  still  have  the  magazines  free  of  charge 
and  a  seat  in  the  theatre.  These  are  my  "perquisites." 
There  is  no  particular  future  for  me.  The  worst  of  it  is 
that  I  don't  seem  to  care.  The  gradual  falling  away  from 
the  high  estate  of  my  first  editorial  is  a  matter  for  the 
student  of  character,  which  I  am  not.  In  myself,  as  in 
my  paper,  I  see  only  results. 

I  think  these  confessions  are  ample  enough  and  blunt 
enough.  When  I  left  the  high  school,  I  would  have  wished 
to  word  them  in  Stevensonian  manner.  That  was  some 
time  ago.  We  who  run  small  dailies  have  little  care  for  the 
niceties  of  style.  There  are  few  of  our  clientele  who  know 
the  nice  from  the  not-nice.  In  our  smaller  cities  we  "sui- 
cide" and  "jeopardize."  We  are  visited  by  "agricultural- 
ists," and  "none  of  us  are"  exempt  from  little  iniquities 
and  uniquities  of  style  and  expression.  We  go  right  on: 
"commence"  where  we  should  "begin,"  use  "balance"  for 
"remainder,"  never  think  of  putting  the  article  before 
"Hon."  and  "Rev.,"  and  some  of  us  abbreviate  "assem- 
blyman" into  "ass,"  meaning  nothing  but  condensation. 
Events  still  "transpire"  in  our  small  cities,  and  inevitably 
we  "try  experiments."  We  have  learned  to  write  "trou- 
sers," and  "gents"  appears  only  in  our  advertisements. 
In  common  with  the  very  biggest  and  best  papers  we  al- 
ways say  "leniency."  That  I  do  these  things,  the  last  co- 
ercion of  environment,  is  the  saddest,  to  me,  of  all. 


THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY 

BY  CHAKLES  MOREAU  HARGER 


EULOGIES  and  laudatory  paragraphs,  alternating  with 
sneers,  ridicule,  and  deprecations,  long  have  been  the  lot 
of  the  country  editor.  Pictured  in  the  comic  papers  as  an 
egotistic  clown,  exalted  by  the  politicians  as  a  mighty 
"moulder  of  public  opinion,"  occasionally  chastised  by 
angry  patrons,  and  sometimes  remembered  by  delighted 
subscribers,  he  has  put  his  errors  where  they  could  be  read 
of  all  men  and  has  modestly  sought  a  fair  credit  for  his 
merits. 

At  times  he  has  rebelled  —  not  at  treatment  from  his 
constituency  but  at  patronizing  remarks  of  the  city  jour- 
nalist who  sits  at  a  mahogany  desk  and  dictates  able 
articles  for  the  eighteen-page  daily,  instead  of  writing  local 
items  at  a  pine  table  in  the  office  of  a  four-page  weekly. 
Thus  did  one  voice  his  protest:  "When  you  consider  that 
the  country  weekly  is  owned  by  its  editor  and  that  the 
man  who  writes  the  funny  things  about  country  papers  in 
the  city  journals  is  owned  by  the  corporation  for  which  he 
writes,  it  does  n't  seem  so  sad.  When  you  see  an  item  in 
the  city  papers  poking  fun  at  the  country  editor  for  print- 
ing news  about  John  Jones'  new  barn,  you  laugh  and 
laugh  —  for  you  know  that  on  one  of  the  pages  of  that 
same  city  daily  is  a  two-column  story  in  regard  to  the 
trimmings  on  the  gowns  of  the  Duchess  of  Wheelbarrow. 
And  it  is  all  the  more  amusing  because  you  know  the  duch- 
ess does  not  even  know  of  the  existence  of  the  aforesaid 
city  paper,  while  John  Jones  and  many  of  his  neighbors 


15£          THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY 

take  and  pay  for  the  paper  which  mentioned  his  new  barn. 
Don't  waste  your  pity  on  the  country  newspaper  worker. 
He  will  get  along." 

Little  money  is  needed  to  start  a  country  paper.  There 
are  those  who  claim  that  it  does  not  require  any  money,  — 
that  it  can  be  done  on  nerve  alone,  —  and  they  produce 
evidence  to  support  the  statement.  True,  some  of  the 
editors  who  have  the  least  money  and  the  poorest  plants 
are  most  successful  in  their  efforts  to  live  up  to  the  con- 
ception developed  by  the  professional  humorist;  but  it  is 
not  fair  to  judge  the  country  editor  by  these  —  any  more 
than  it  would  be  fair  to  judge  the  workers  on  the  great  city 
dailies  by  the  publishers  of  back-street  fake  sheets  that 
exist  merely  to  rob  advertisers;  or  to  judge  the  editors  of 
reputable  magazines  by  the  promoters  of  nauseous  month- 
lies whose  stock  in  trade  is  a  weird  and  sickening  collection 
of  mail-order  bargains  and  quack  medicine  advertisements. 

The  country  editor  of  to-day  is  far  removed  from  his 
prototype  of  two  or  three  decades  ago.  It  would  be  strange 
if  an  age  that  gives  to  the  farmer  his  improved  self-binder, 
to  the  physician  his  X-ray  machine,  and  to  the  merchant 
his  loose-leaf  ledger,  had  done  nothing  for  the  town's  best 
medium  of  publicity.  The  perfection  of  stereotype  plate 
manufacture  by  which  a  page  of  telegraph  news  may  be 
delivered  ready  for  printing  at  a  cost  of  approximately 
twenty  cents  a  column,  and  the  elaboration  of  the  "ready 
print,"  or  "patent  inside,"  by  which  half  the  paper  is 
printed  before  delivery,  yet  at  practically  no  expense  over 
the  unprinted  sheets,  have  been  the  two  great  labor-savers 
for  the  country  editor.  Thereby  he  is  relieved,  if  he  desire, 
of  the  tedious  and  expensive  task  of  setting  much  type  in 
order  to  give  the  world's  general  news,  and  the  miscella- 
neous matter  that  "fills  up"  the  paper.  His  energies  then 
may  be  devoted  to  reporting  the  happenings  of  his  locality 


THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY          153 

and  to  giving  his  opinions  on  public  affairs.  By  his  doing 
of  these,  and  by  his  relations  toward  the  public  interests, 
is  he  to  be  judged. 

After  all,  no  one  man  in  the  community  has  so  large  an 
opportunity  to  assist  the  town  in  advancement  as  the 
editor.  It  is  not  because  he  is  smarter  than  others,  not 
because  he  is  wealthy  —  but  because  he  is  the  spokesman 
to  the  outside  world. 

He  is  eager  to  print  all  the  news  in  his  own  paper.  Does 
he  do  it?  Hardly.  "This  would  be  a  very  newsy  paper," 
explained  a  frank  country  editor  to  his  subscribers,  "were 
it  not  for  the  fact  that  each  of  the  four  men  who  work  on 
it  has  many  friends.  By  the  time  all  the  items  that  might 
injure  some  of  their  friends  are  omitted,  very  little  is  left." 

"I  wish  you  would  print  a  piece  about  our  school- 
teacher," said  a  farmer's  wife  to  me  one  afternoon.  "Say 
that  she  is  the  best  teacher  in  the  county." 

"But  I  can't  do  that  —  two  hundred  other  teachers 
would  be  angry.  You  write  the  piece,  sign  it,  and  I'll 
print  it." 

"What  are  you  running  a  newspaper  for  if  you  can't 
please  your  subscribers?"  she  demanded  —  and  canceled 
her  subscription. 

So  the  country  editor  leaves  out  certain  good  things  and 
certain  bad  things  for  the  very  simple  reason  that  the  per- 
sons most  interested  are  close  at  hand  and  can  find  the 
individual  responsible  for  the  statements.  He  becomes 
wise  in  his  generation  and  avoids  chastisements  and  libel 
suits.  He  finds  that  there  is  no  lasting  regard  in  a  sneer, 
no  satisfaction  in  gratifying  the  impulse  to  say  things  that 
bring  tears  to  women's  eyes,  nothing  to  gloat  over  in  open- 
ing a  wound  in  a  man's  heart.  If  he  does  not  learn  this 
as  he  grows  older  in  the  service,  he  is  a  poor  country  editor. 

His  relations  to  his  subscribers  are  intimate.  There  is 
12 


154          THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY 

little  mystery  possible  about  the  making  of  the  paper;  it  is 
as  if  he  stood  in  the  market-place  and  told  his  story.  Of 
course,  the  demands  upon  him  are  many  and  some  of  them 
preposterous.  Men  with  grafts  seek  to  use  the  paper, 
people  with  schemes  ask  free  publicity.  The  country  edi- 
tor is  criticised  for  charging  for  certain  items  that  no  city 
paper  prints  free.  The  churches  and  lodges  want  free 
notices  of  entertainments  by  which  they  hope  to  make 
money;  semi-public  entertainments  prepared  under  the 
management  of  a  traveling  promoter  ask  free  advertising 
" for  the  good  of  the  cause."  Usually  they  get  it,  and  when 
the  promoter  passes  on,  the  editor  is  found  to  be  the  only 
one  in  town  who  received  nothing  for  his  labor. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  country  town  to  engage  in 
community  quarrels.  These  absorb  the  attention  of  the 
citizens,  and  feeling  becomes  bitter.  The  cause  may  be 
trifling:  the  location  of  a  schoolhouse,  the  building  of  a 
bridge,  the  selection  of  a  justice  of  the  peace,  or  some 
similar  matter,  is  enough.  To  the  newspaper  office  hurry 
the  partisans,  asking  for  ex  parte  reports  of  the  conditions. 
One  leader  is,  perhaps,  a  liberal  advertiser;  to  offend  him 
means  loss  of  business.  Another  is  a  personal  friend;  to 
anger  him  means  the  loss  of  friendship.  The  editor  of  the 
only  paper  in  the  town  must  be  a  diplomat  if  he  is  to  guide 
safely  through  the  channel.  In  former  times  he  tried  to 
please  both  sides  and  succeeded  in  making  enemies  of  every 
one  interested.  Now  the  well-equipped  editor  takes  the 
position  that  he  is  a  business  man  like  the  others,  that  he 
has  rights  as  do  they,  and  he  states  the  facts  as  he  sees 
them,  regardless  of  partisanship,  letting  the  public  do  the 
rest.  If  there  be  another  paper  in  town,  the  problem  is 
easy,  for  the  other  faction  also  has  an  "organ." 

Out  of  the  public's  disagreement  may  come  a  newspaper 
quarrel  —  though  this  is  a  much  rarer  thing  than  formerly. 


THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY          155 

The  old-time  country  newspaper  abuse  of  "our  loathed  but 
esteemed  contemporary"  is  passing  away,  it  being  under- 
stood that  such  a  quarrel,  with  personalities  entangled  in 
the  recriminations,  is  both  undignified  and  ungentlemanly. 
"But  people  will  read  it,"  says  the  man  who  by  gossip 
encourages  these  attacks.  So  will  people  listen  to  a  coarse 
street  controversy  carried  on  in  a  loud  and  angry  tone,  — 
but  little  is  their  respect  for  the  principals  engaged.  Coun- 
try editors  of  the  better  class  now  treat  other  editors  as 
gentlemen,  and  the  paper  that  stoops  to  personal  attacks 
is  seldom  found.  Many  a  town  has  gone  for  years  without 
other  than  kindly  mention  in  any  paper  of  the  editors  of 
the  other  papers,  and  in  such  towns  you  will  generally  find 
peace  and  courtesy  among  the  citizens. 

Of  course,  there  are  politics  and  political  arguments,  but 
few  are  the  editors  so  lacking  in  the  instincts  of  a  gentle- 
man as  to  bring  into  these  the  opposing  editor's  personal 
and  family  affairs.  It  has  come  to  be  understood  that  such 
action  is  a  reflection  on  the  one  who  does  it,  not  on  the 
object  of  his  attack.  This  is  another  way  of  saying  that 
more  real  gentlemen  are  running  country  newspapers  to- 
day than  ever  before.  This  broadening  of  character  has 
broadened  influence.  The  country  paper  is  effecting 
greater  things  in  legislation  than  the  county  conven- 
tions are. 

"The  power  of  the  country  press  in  Washington  sur- 
prises me,"  said  a  Middle  West  congressman  last  winter. 
"During  my  two  terms  I  have  been  impressed  with  it  con- 
stantly. I  doubt  if  there  is  a  single  calm  utterance  in  any 
paper  in  the  United  States  that  does  not  carry  some  weight 
in  Washington  among  the  members  of  Congress.  You 
might  think  that  what  some  little  country  editor  says  does 
not  amount  to  anything,  but  it  means  a  great  deal  more 
than  most  people  realize.  When  the  country  editor,  who 


156          THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY 

is  looking  after  nothing  but  the  county  printing,  gives  ex- 
pression to  some  rational  idea  about  a  national  question, 
the  man  off  here  in  Congress  knows  that  it  comes  from  the 
grass-roots.  The  lobby,  the  big  railroad  lawyers,  and  that 
class  of  people,  realize  the  power  of  the  press,  but  they  hate 
it.  I  have  heard  them  talk  about  it  and  shake  their  heads 
and  say,  *  Too  much  power  there ! '  The  press  is  more  pow- 
erful than  money." 

This  was  not  said  in  flattery,  but  because  he  had  seen 
on  congressmen's  desks  the  heaps  of  country  weeklies,  and 
he  knew  how  closely  they  were  read.  The  smallest  edi- 
torial paragraph  tells  the  politician  of  the  condition  in  that 
paper's  community,  for  he  knows  that  it  is  put  there  be- 
cause the  editor  has  gathered  the  idea  from  some  one  whom 
he  trusts  as  a  leader  —  and  the  politician  knows  approxi- 
mately who  that  leader  is.  So  the  country  editor  often 
exerts  a  power  of  which  he  knows  little. 


ii 

But  politics  is  only  a  part  of  the  country  editor's  life. 
The  social  affairs  of  the  community  are  nearest  to  him. 
The  proud  father  who  brings  in  a  cigar  with  a  notice  of 
the  seventh  baby's  arrival  (why  cigars  and  babies  should 
be  associated  in  men's  minds  I  never  understood),  the  fruit 
farmer  who  presents  some  fine  Ben  Davis  apples  in  the 
expectation  that  he  will  get  a  notice,  are  but  types.  The 
editor  may  have  some  doubts  concerning  the  need  of  a 
seventh  child  in  the  family  of  the  proud  father,  and  he 
may  not  be  particularly  fond  of  Ben  Davis  apples;  but  he 
gives  generous  notices  because  he  knows  that  the  gifts 
were  prompted  by  kind  hearts  and  that  the  givers  are  his 
friends. 

When  joy  comes  to  the  household,  it  is  but  the  working 


THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY          157 

of  the  heart's  best  impulses  to  desire  that  all  should  share 
it.  The  news  that  the  princess  of  the  family  has,  after 
many  years  of  waiting,  wedded  a  prosperous  merchant  of 
the  neighboring  county,  brings  the  family  into  prominence 
in  the  home  paper.  Seldom  in  these  busy  times  does  the 
editor  get  a  piece  of  wedding-cake,  but  nevertheless  he 
fails  not  to  say  that  the  bride  is  "one  of  our  loveliest  young 
ladies  and  the  groom  is  worthy  of  the  prize  he  has  won." 
The  city  paper  does  not  do  that.  Here  and  there  a  country 
editor  tries  to  put  on  city  airs  and  give  the  bare  facts  of 
"social  functions,"  without  a  personal  touch  to  the  lines. 
But  infrequently  does  he  succeed  in  reaching  the  hearts  of 
his  readers,  and  somehow  he  finds  that  his  contemporary 
across  the  street,  badly  printed,  sprinkled  with  typographi- 
cal errors  and  halting  in  its  grammar,  but  profuse  in  its 
laudations,  is  getting  an  unusual  number  of  new  sub- 
scribers. Even  you,  though  you  may  pretend  to  be  un- 
mindful, are  not  displeased  when  on  the  day  after  your 
party  you  read  that  the  guests  "went  home  feeling  that  a 
good  time  had  been  had." 

The  time  has  not  yet  come  for  the  country  paper  to 
assume  city  airs;  nor  is  it  likely  to  arrive  for  many  years. 
The  reason  is  a  psychological  one.  The  city  journal  is  the 
paper  of  the  masses;  the  country  weekly  or  small  daily  is 
the  paper  of  the  neighborhood.  One  is  general  and  imper- 
sonal; the  other,  direct  and  intimate.  One  is  the  market- 
place; the  other,  the  home.  The  distinction  is  not  soon  to 
be  wiped  out. 

And  when  sorrow  comes !  Into  the  home  of  a  city  friend 
of  mine  death  entered,  taking  the  wife  and  mother.  The 
family  had  been  prominent  in  social  circles,  and  columns 
were  printed  in  the  city  papers,  columns  of  cold,  biograph- 
ical facts  —  born,  married,  died.  But  the  news  went  back 
to  the  small  country  town  where  in  their  early  married  life 


158          THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY 

the  husband  and  wife  had  spent  many  happy  years,  and 
in  the  little  country  weekly  was  quite  another  sort  of  story. 
It  told  how  much  her  friends  loved  her,  how  saddened  they 
were  by  her  passing  away,  how  sweet  and  womanly  had 
been  her  character.  The  husband  did  not  send  the  city 
papers  to  distant  acquaintances;  he  sent  copy  after  copy 
of  the  little  country  weekly,  the  only  place  where,  despite 
his  prominence  in  the  world,  appeared  a  sympathetic  rela- 
tion of  the  loss  that  had  come  to  him. 

Week  after  week  the  country  paper  does  this.  From 
issue  after  issue  clippings  are  stowed  away  in  bureau 
drawers  or  pasted  in  family  Bibles,  because  they  picture 
the  loved  one  gone.  It  may  not  be  a  very  high  mission; 
but  no  part  of  the  country  editor's  work  has  in  it  more 
of  satisfaction  and  recompense. 

After  the  funeral  comes  the  real  test  of  the  editor's  good- 
nature. Long  resolutions  adopted  by  lodges  and  church 
organizations  are  handed  in  for  publication,  each  bristling 
with  the  forms  of  ritual  or  creed,  and  each  signed  with  the 
names  of  the  committee  members  upon  whom  devolved 
the  task  of  composition.  A  few  country  editors  are  brave 
enough  to  demand  payment  at  advertising  rates  for  these 
publications;  generally  they  are  printed  without  charge. 

Nor  is  there  a  halt  at  this  step  in  the  proceeding.  One 
day  a  sad-faced  farmer,  with  a  heavy  band  of  crape  around 
his  battered  soft  hat,  accompanied  by  a  woman  whose 
heavy  veil  and  black  dress  are  sufficient  insignia  of  woe, 
comes  to  the  office. 

"We  would  like  to  put  in  a  'card  of  thanks/  "  begins 
the  man,  "  and  we  wish  you  would  write  it  for  us.  We  ain't 
very  good  at  writing  pieces,  and  you  know  how." 

Does  the  editor  tell  them  how  bad  is  the  taste  that  in- 
dulges the  stereotyped  card  of  thanks?  Does  he  haughtily 
refuse  to  be  a  party  to  such  violation  of  form's  canons? 


THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY          159 

Scarcely.  He  knows  the  formula  by  heart  and  "the  kind 
friends  and  neighbors  who  assisted  us  in  our  late  bereave- 
ment" comes  to  him  as  easily  as  the  opening  words  of  a 
mayor's  proclamation. 

Occasionally  there  is  literary  talent  in  the  family,  and 
the  "card"  is  prepared  without  the  editor's  assistance. 
Here  is  one  verbatim  as  it  came  to  the  desk:  — 

"We  extend  our  thanks  to  the  good  people  who  assisted 
us  in  the  sickness  and  death  of  our  wife  and  daughter :  The 
doctor  who  was  so  faithful  in  attendance  and  effort  to 
bring  her  back  to  health,  the  pastor  who  visited  and  prayed 
with  her  and  us,  the  students  who  watched  with  us  and 
waited  on  her,  the  neighbors  who  did  all  they  could  in 
helping  care  for  her,  the  dormitory  students,  the  faculty, 
the  literary  societies  and  the  A.O.U.W.  who  furnished  such 
beautiful  flowers,  we  thank  them  all.  Then  the  undertaker 
who  was  so  kind,  the  liveryman  and  other  friends  who 
furnished  carriages  for  us  to  go  to  the  cemetery  —  yes,  we 
thank  you  all." 

Doubtless  he  feels  that  he  should  do  something  toward 
conserving  the  best  taste  in  social  usage,  and  that  the  "card 
of  thanks"  should  be  ruthlessly  frowned  down;  but  he  sees 
also  the  other  side.  It  is  unquestionably  prompted  by  a 
spirit  of  sincere  gratitude,  and  survives  as  a  concession  to 
a  supposed  public  opinion.  Like  other  things  that  are 
self -perpetuating,  this  continues  —  and  the  country  editor 
out  of  the  goodness  of  his  heart  assists  in  its  longevity.  In 
no  path  is  the  progress  of  the  reformer  so  difficult  as  in  that 
of  social  custom;  and  this  is  as  true  on  the  village  street  as 
on  the  city  boulevard. 

in 

The  past  half-decade  has  brought  to  the  country  editor 
a  new  problem  and  a  new  rival,  —  the  rural  delivery  route. 


160          THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY 

Until  this  innovation  came,  few  farmers  took  daily  papers. 
The  country  weekly,  or  the  weekly  from  the  city,  furnished 
the  news. 

Out  in  the  Middle  West  the  other  morning,  a  dozen  miles 
from  town,  a  farmer  rode  on  a  sulky  plough  turning  over 
brown  furrows  for  the  new  crop.  "I  see  by  to-day's  Kan- 
sas City  papers,"  he  began,  as  a  visitor  came  alongside, 
"that  there  is  trouble  in  Russia  again."  "What  do  you 
know  about  what  is  in  to-day's  Kansas  City  papers?" 
"Oh,  we  got  them  from  the  carrier  an  hour  ago." 

It  was  not  yet  noon,  but  he  was  in  touch  with  the  world's 
news  up  to  one  o'clock  that  morning  —  and  this  twelve 
miles  from  a  railroad  and  two  hundred  miles  west  of  the 
Missouri  River !  In  that  county  every  farmhouse  has  rural 
delivery  of  mail;  and  one  carrier  makes  his  round  in  an 
automobile,  covering  the  thirty  miles  in  four  hours  or  less. 

The  country  editor  has  viewed  with  alarm  this  changing 
condition.  He  has  feared  that  he  would  be  robbed  of  his 
subscribers  through  the  familiar  excuse,  "I'm  takin'  more 
papers  than  I  can  read."  But  nothing  of  the  kind  has 
happened.  Although  the  rural  carriers  take  each  morning 
great  packages  of  daily  papers,  brought  to  the  village  by 
the  fast  mail,  the  people  along  the  routes  are  as  eager  as 
ever  for  the  weekly  visit  of  the  home  paper.  If  by  accident 
one  copy  is  missing  from  the  carrier's  supply  on  Thurs- 
day, great  is  the  lamentation.  It  is  doubtful  if  a  single 
country  paper  has  been  injured  by  the  rural  route;  in 
most  instances  the  reading  habit  has  been  so  stimulated 
as  to  increase  the  patronage. 

This  it  has  done :  it  has  impressed  on  the  editor  the  ne- 
cessity of  giving  much  attention  to  home  news  and  less  to 
the  happenings  afar.  This  is,  indeed,  the  province  of  the 
country  paper,  since  it  is  of  the  home  and  the  family,  not 
of  the  market-place.  This  feature  will  grow,  and  the  coun- 


THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY          161 

try  paper  will  become  more  a  chronicle  of  home  news  and 
less  a  purveyor  of  outside  happenings,  for  soon  practically 
every  farmer  will  have  his  daily  paper  with  the  regularity 
of  the  sunrise.  On  the  whole,  instead  of  being  an  injury 
this  is  helpful  to  the  rural  publisher;  it  relieves  him  of 
responsibility  for  a  broad  field  of  information  and  allows 
him  to  devote  his  energy  to  that  news  which  gives  the 
greatest  hold  on  readers,  —  the  doings  of  the  immediate 
community.  With  this  will  come  more  generally  the  print- 
ing of  the  entire  paper  at  home  and  the  decline  of  the 
"patent  inside,"  now  so  common,  which  has  served  its  pur- 
pose well.  If  it  exist,  it  will  be  in  a  modified  form,  devoted 
chiefly  to  readable  articles  of  a  literary  rather  than  of  a 
news  value. 

The  city  daily  may  give  the  telegraph  news  of  the  world 
in  quicker  and  better  service,  the  mail-order  house  may 
occasionally  undersell  the  home  merchant,  the  glory  of  the 
city's  lights  may  dazzle;  but,  at  the  end  of  the  week,  home 
and  home  institutions  are  best;  so  only  one  publication 
gives  the  news  we  most  wish  to  know,  —  the  country 
paper.  The  city  business  man  throws  away  his  financial 
journal  and  his  yellow  "extra,"  and  tears  open  the  pencil- 
addressed  home  paper  that  brings  to  him  memories  of  new- 
mown  hay  and  fallow  fields  and  boyhood.  Regardless  of 
its  style,  its  grammar,  or  its  politics,  it  holds  its  reader  with 
a  grip  that  the  city  editor  may  well  envy. 

In  these  times  the  country  editor  is,  like  the  publisher 
of  the  city,  a  business  man.  Scores  of  offices  of  country 
weeklies  within  two  hundred  miles  of  the  Rockies  (which 
is  about  as  far  inland  as  we  can  get  nowadays)  have  lino- 
types or  type-setting  machines,  run  the  presses  with  an 
electric  motor,  and  give  the  editor  an  income  of  three 
thousand  dollars  or  more  a  year  for  labor  that  allows  many 
a  vacation  day.  The  country  editor  gets  a  good  deal  out 


162          THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY 

of  life.  He  lives  well;  he  travels  much;  he  meets  the  best 
people  of  his  state;  and,  if  he  be  inclined,  he  can  accom- 
plish much  for  his  own  improvement.  Added  to  this  is  the 
joy  of  rewarding  the  honorable,  decent  people  of  the  town 
with  good  words  and  helpful  publicity,  and  the  satisfac- 
tion of  seeing  that  the  rascals  get  their  dues,  —  and  get 
them  they  do  if  the  editor  lives  and  the  rascals  live,  for  in 
the  country  town  the  editor's  turn  always  comes.  It  may 
be  long  delayed,  but  it  arrives.  If  he  use  his  power  with 
honesty  and  intelligence,  he  can  do  much  good  for  the 
community. 

In  the  opinion  of  some  this  danger  threatens:  the  in- 
creased rapidity  of  transportation,  the  multitude  of  fast 
trains,  and  the  facilities  for  placing  the  big  city  papers 
within  a  zone  of  one  hundred  miles  of  the  office  of  publica- 
tion, mean  the  large  representation  of  particular  localities, 
or  even  the  establishment  of  editions  devoted  to  them. 
The  city  paper  tries  to  absorb  the  local  patronage  through 
the  competent  correspondent  who  practically  edits  certain 
columns  or  pages  of  the  journal.  In  the  thickly  settled 
East  this  is  more  successful  than  in  the  West,  where  dis- 
tance helps  the  local  paper.  But  the  zone  is  widening  with 
every  improvement  in  transportation  of  mails,  and  soon 
few  sections  of  the  country  will  be  outside  the  possibilities 
of  some  city  paper's  enterprise  in  this  direction. 

When  this  happens,  will  the  local  weekly  go  out  of  exist- 
ence and  its  subscribers  be  attached  to  the  big  city  paper 
whose  facilities  for  getting  news  and  whose  enterprise  in 
reaching  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  world  far  outstrip  the 
slow-going  weekly's  best  efforts?  It  is  not  likely.  The 
county-seat  weekly  to-day,  with  its  energetic  correspond- 
ent in  the  town  of  Centreville,  adds  to  its  list  in  that  section 
because  it  gives  the  news  fully  and  crisply;  but  it  does 
not  drive  out  of  business  the  Centreville  Palladium,  whose 


THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY  163 

editor  has  a  personal  acquaintance  with  every  subscriber 
and  who  caters  to  the  home  pride  of  the  community.  It  is 
probable  that  the  Palladium  will  be  more  enterprising  and 
will  devote  more  attention  to  the  doings  of  the  dwellers  in 
Centreville  in  order  to  keep  abreast  with  the  competition; 
but  it  cannot  be  driven  out,  nor  its  editor  forced  from  his 
position  by  dearth  of  business.  The  life  of  a  forceful  paper 
is  long.  One  such  paper  was  sold  and  its  name  changed 
eighteen  years  ago;  yet  letters  and  subscriptions  still  are 
addressed  to  the  old  publication.  A  hold  like  that  on  a 
community's  life  cannot  be  broken  by  competition. 


IV 

The  evolution  of  the  country  weekly  into  the  country 
daily  is  becoming  easier  as  telephone  and  telegraph  become 
cheaper,  and  transportation  enables  publishers  to  secure  at 
remote  points  a  daily  "plate"  service  that  includes  tele- 
graph news  up  to  a  few  hours  of  the  time  of  publication. 
The  publishing  of  an  Associated  Press  daily,  which  twenty 
years  ago  always  attended  a  town's  boom  and  generally 
resulted  in  the  suspension  of  a  bank  or  two  and  the  finan- 
cial ruin  of  several  families,  has  become  simplified  until  it 
is  within  reach  of  modest  means. 

Instead  of  the  big  city  journals  extending  their  sway  to 
crush  out  the  country  paper,  it  is  more  probable  that  the 
country  papers  will  take  on  some  of  the  city's  airs,  and 
that,  with  the  added  touch  of  personal  familiarity  with  the 
people  and  their  affairs,  the  country  editor  will  become  a 
greater  power  than  in  the  past.  For  it  is  recognized  to-day 
that  the  publication  of  a  paper  is  a  business  affair  and  not 
a  matter  of  faith  or  revenge.  If  the  publication  be  not  a 
financial  success,  it  is  not  much  of  a  success  of  any  kind. 

The  old-time  editor  who  prided  himself  on  his  powers  of 


164          THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY 

vituperation,  who  thundered  through  double-leaded  col- 
umns his  views  on  matters  of  world-importance  and  traded 
space  for  groceries  and  dry  goods,  has  few  representatives 
to-day.  The  wide-awake,  clean-cut,  well-dressed  young 
men,  paying  cash  for  their  purchases  and  demanding  cash 
for  advertising,  alert  to  the  business  and  political  move- 
ments that  make  for  progress,  and  taking  active  part  in 
the  interests  of  the  town,  precisely  as  though  they  were 
merchants  or  mechanics,  asking  no  favors  because  of  their 
occupation,  are  taking  their  places.  This  sort  of  country 
editor  is  transforming  the  country  paper  and  is  making  of 
it  a  business  enterprise  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term,  — 
something  it  seldom  was  under  the  old  regime. 

This  eulogy  is  one  often  quoted  by  the  country  press: 
"Every  year  every  local  paper  gives  from  five  hundred  to 
five  thousand  lines  for  the  benefit  of  the  community  in 
which  it  is  located.  No  other  agency  can  or  will  do  this. 
The  editor,  in  proportion  to  his  means,  does  more  for  his 
town  than  any  other  man.  To-day  editors  do  more  work 
for  less  pay  than  any  men  on  earth." 

Like  other  eulogies  it  has  in  it  something  of  exaggera- 
tion. It  assumes  the  country  editor  to  be  a  philanthropist 
above  his  neighbors.  The  new  type  of  country  editor 
makes  no  such  claim.  To  be  sure,  he  prints  many  good 
things  for  the  community's  benefit,  —  but  he  does  it  be- 
cause he  is  a  part  of  the  community.  What  helps  the  town 
helps  him.  His  neighbor,  the  miller,  would  do  as  much; 
his  other  neighbor,  the  hardware  man,  is  as  loyal  and  in 
his  way  works  as  hard  for  the  town's  upbuilding.  In  other 
words,  the  country  editor  of  to-day  assumes  no  particular 
virtue  because  his  capital  is  invested  in  printing-presses, 
paper,  and  a  few  thousand  pieces  of  metal  called  type.  He 
does  realize  that  because  of  his  avocation  he  is  enabled  to 
do  much  for  good  government,  for  progress,  and  for  the 


THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY          165 

betterment  of  his  community.  Unselfishly  and  freely  he 
does  this.  He  starts  movements  that  bring  scoundrels  to 
terms,  that  place  flowers  where  weeds  grew  before,  that 
banish  sorrow  and  add  to  the  world's  store  of  joy;  but  he 
does  not  presume  that  because  of  this  he  deserves  more 
credit  than  his  fellow  business  men.  He  is  indeed  fallen 
from  grace  who  makes  a  merit  of  doing  what  is  decent  and 
honest  and  fair. 

It  is  often  remarked  that  the  ambition  of  the  country 
editor  is  to  secure  a  position  on  a  city  paper.  I  have  had 
many  city  newspapermen  confide  to  me  that  their  fondest 
hope  was  to  save  enough  money  to  buy  a  country  weekly 
in  a  thriving  town.  At  first  thought  it  would  seem  that 
the  city  journalist  would  fail  in  the  new  field,  having  been 
educated  in  a  vastly  different  atmosphere  and  being  unac- 
quainted with  the  conditions  under  which  the  country 
editor  must  make  friends  and  secure  business.  But  two 
of  the  most  successful  newspapers  of  my  acquaintance  are 
edited  by  men  who  served  their  apprenticeship  on  city 
dailies,  and  finally  realized  their  heart's  desire  and  bought 
country  weeklies  in  prosperous  communities.  They  are 
not  only  making  more  money  than  ever  before,  but  both 
tell  me  that  they  have  greater  happiness  than  came  in  the 
old  days  of  rush,  hurry,  and  excitement. 

So  long  as  a  country  paper  can  be  issued  without  the 
expenditure  of  more  than  a  few  hundred  dollars,  so  long 
as  the  man  with  ambition  and  money  can  satisfy  his  desire 
to  "edit,"  the  country  paper  will  be  fruitful  of  jocose 
remarks  by  the  city  journalist.  There  will  be  columns  of 
odd  reprint  from  the  backwoods  of  Arkansas,  and  queer 
combinations  of  grammar  and  egotism  from  the  Egypt  of 
Illinois.  The  exchange  editor  will  find  in  his  rural  mail 
much  food  for  humorous  comment,  but  he  will  not  find 
characterizing  the  country  editor  a  lack  of  independence, 


166          THE  COUNTRY  EDITOR  OF  TO-DAY 

or  a  lack  of  ability  to  look  out  for  himself.  The  country 
editor  is  doing  very  well,  and  the  trend  of  his  business 
affairs  is  in  the  direction  of  better  financial  returns  and 
wider  influence.  He  is  a  greater  power  now  than  ever 
before  in  his  history,  and  he  will  become  more  influential 
as  the  years  go  by.  He  will  not  be  controlled  by  a  syndi- 
cate, or  modeled  after  a  machine-made  pattern,  but  will 
exert  his  individuality  wherever  he  may  be. 

The  country  editor  of  to-day  is  coming  into  his  own.  He 
asks  fewer  favors  and  brings  more  into  the  store  of  common 
good.  He  does  not  ask  eulogies  nor  does  he  resent  fair 
criticisms;  he  is  content  to  be  judged  by  what  he  is  and 
what  he  has  accomplished.  As  the  leader  of  the  hosts 
must  hold  his  place  by  the  consent  of  his  followers,  so  must 
the  town's  spokesman  prove  his  worth.  Closest  to  the 
people,  nearest  to  their  home  life,  its  hopes  and  its  aspira- 
tions, the  country  editor  is  at  the  foundation  of  journalism. 
Here  and  there  is  a  weak  and  inefficient  example;  but  in 
the  main  he  measures  up  to  as  high  a  standard  as  does  any 
class  of  business  men  in  the  nation,  —  and  it  is  as  a  busi- 
ness man  that  he  prefers  to  be  classed. 


SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW 

BY    GEORGE   W.    ALGER 


So  much  has  been  said  in  recent  years  concerning  the 
methods  and  policies  of  sensational  journalism  that  a  fur- 
ther word  upon  a  topic  so  hackneyed  would  seem  almost 
to  require  an  explanation  or  an  apology.  Current  criticism, 
however,  for  the  most  part,  has  been  confined  to  only  one 
of  its  many  characteristics,  —  its  bad  taste  and  its  vulgar- 
izing influence  on  its  readers  by  daily  offenses  against  the 
actual,  though  as  yet  ideal,  right  of  privacy,  by  its  arrogant 
boastfulness,  mawkish  sentimentality,  and  a  persistent  and 
systematic  distortion  of  values  in  events. 

This,  the  most  noticeable  feature  of  yellow  journalism, 
is  indicative  rather  of  its  character  than  of  its  purpose.  In 
considering,  however,  the  present  subject,  —  sensational 
journalism  in  its  relation  to  the  making,  enforcing,  and 
interpreting  of  law,  —  we  enter  a  different  field,  that  of 
the  conscious  policies  and  objects  with  and  for  which  these 
papers  are  conducted.  The  main  business  of  a  newspaper 
as  defined  by  journalists  of  the  old  school  is  the  collection 
and  publication  of  news  of  general  interest  coupled  with 
editorial  comment  upon  it.  The  old-time  editor  was  a 
ruminative  and  critical  observer  of  public  events.  This 
definition  of  the  functions  of  a  newspaper  was  long  ago 
scornfully  cast  aside  as  absurdly  antiquated  and  insuffi- 
cient to  include  the  myriad  circulation-making  enterprises 
of  yellow  journalism.  These  papers  are  not  simply  pur- 
veyors of  news  and  comment,  but  have  what,  for  lack  of  a 
better  term,  may  be  called  constructive  policies  of  their 


/   / 

^4^s 


168    SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW 

own.    In  the  making  of  law,  for  example,  not  content  with 
mere  criticism  of  legislators  and  their  measures,  the  new 
journalism  conceives  and  exploits  measures  of  its  own, 
drafted  by  its  own  counsel,  and  introduced  as  legislative 
bills  by  statesmen  to  whom  flattering  press  notices  and 
the  publication  of  an  occasional  blurred  photograph  are  a 
sufficient  reward.     Not  infrequently  measures  thus  con- 
-Vj-£jTceived  and  drafted  are  supported  by  specially  prepared 
"monster  petitions,"  containing  thousands  of  names,  badly 
written  and  of  doubtful  authenticity,  of  supposed  parti- 
'   fcans,  and  by  special  trains  filled  with  orators  and  a  hetero- 
geneous rabble  described  in  the  news  columns  as  "com- 
„  mittees  of  citizens,"  who  at  critical  periods  are  collected 
:her  and  turned  loose  upon  the  assembled  lawmakers 
as  an  impressive  object  lesson  of  the  public  interest  fer- 
vidly aroused  on  behalf  of  the  newspaper's  bill. 

ic  ethics  of  persuasion  is  an  interesting  subject.    It 
i^jj,     falls,  however,  outside  the  scope  of  this  article.    It  is  im- 
tv>»  4  ^*P°ssible  to  lay  down  any  hard  and  fast  rule  by  which  to 
determine  in  all  cases  what  form  of  newspaper  influence 
-£*        is  legitimate  and  what  illegitimate.     The  most  obvious 
*sit*£    characteristic  of  yellow  journalism  in  its  relation  to  law- 
u*t  JL   making  is  that  it  prefers  ordinarily  to  obtain  its  ends  by 
J       11  the  use  of  intimidation  rather  than  by  persuasion.    The 
i  j"  monster  petition  scheme  just  referred  to  is  merely  one 
v  illustrative  expression  of  this  preference.    When  a  news- 
paper of  this  type  is  interested  in  having  some  official  do 
s  particular  thing  in  some  particular  way,  it  spends 
little  of  its  space  or  time  in  attempting  to  show  the  logical 
propriety  or  necessity  for  the  action  it  desires.    It  seeks 
first  and  foremost  to  make  the  official  see  that  the  eyes  of 
the  people  are  on  him,  and  that  any  action  by  him  contrary 
to  that  which  the  newspaper  assures  him  the  people  want 
would  be  fraught  with  serious  personal  consequences.    The 


SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW    169 

principal  point  with  these  papers  is  always  "the  people 
demand"  (in  large  capitals)  this  or  that,  and  the  logic  or 
reason  of  the  demand  is  obscured  or  ignored.  It  is  the 
headless  Demos  transformed  into  printer's  ink.  If  by  any 
chance  any  official,  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  ideas  of  his 
own  as  to  how  his  office  should  be  conducted,  proves  ob- 
durate to  the  demands  of  the  printed  voice  of  the  people, 
he  becomes  the  target  for  newspaper  attacks,  calculated  to 
destroy  any  reputation  he  may  previously  have  had  for 
intelligence,  sobriety  of  judgment,  or  public  efficiency,  his 
tormentor,  so  far  as  libel  is  concerned,  keeping,  however, 
as  Fabian  says,  "on  the  windy  side  of  the  law." 

An  amusing  illustration  of  this  kind  of  warfare  occurred 
in  New  York  some  years  ago,  when  for  several  weeks  one 
of  these  newspapers  published  daily  attacks  upon  the 
President  of  the  Board  of  Police  Commissioners,  because 
he  refused  to  follow  the  newspaper  theories  of  the  proper 
way  of  enforcing,  or  rather  not  enforcing,  the  Excise  Law. 
The  newspaper  took  the  position  that,  while  the  powers  of 
the  Police  Department  were  being  largely  turned  to  ferret- 
ing out  saloon-keepers  who  were  keeping  open  after  hours 
or  on  Sundays,  the  detection  of  serious  crimes  was  being 
neglected,  and  that  a  "carnival  of  crime,"  to  use  the  pic- 
turesque wording  of  its  headlines,  was  being  carried  on  in 
the  city.  Finally,  in  one  of  its  issues  the  paper  published 
a  list  of  thirty  distinct  criminal  offenses  of  the  most  serious 
character, — murder,  felonious  assault,  burglary,  grand 
larceny,  and  the  like,  —  all  alleged  to  have  been  commit- 
ted within  a  week,  in  none  of  which,  it  asserted,  had  any 
criminal  been  captured  or  any  stolen  property  recovered. 
Events  which  followed  immediately  upon  this  last  publica- 
tion showed  that  the  newspaper  had  erred  grievously  in  its 
estimate  of  this  particular  official  under  attack.  A  few  days 
later  the  Police  Commissioner,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  published  in 

13 


170    SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW 

the  columns  of  all  the  other  newspapers  in  New  York  the 
result  of  his  own  personal  investigation  of  these  thirty  items 
of  criminal  news,  showing  conclusively  that  twenty-eight 
of  them  were  canards  pure  and  simple,  and  that  in  the 
remaining  two  police  activity  had  brought  about  results 
of  a  most  satisfactory  kind.  Following  this  statement  of 
the  facts  was  appended  an  adaptation  of  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  lines  from  Macaulay's  merciless  essay  on  Barrere, 
—  perhaps  the  finest  philippic  against  a  notorious  and  in- 
veterate liar  which  the  English  language  affords,  —  so 
worded  that  they  should  apply,  not  only  to  the  newspaper 
which  published  this  spurious  list  of  alleged  crimes,  but  to 
the  editor  and  proprietor  personally.  The  carnival  of  crime 
ended  at  once. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  determine  accurately  the 
extent  of  newspaper  influence  upon  legislation  and  the  con- 
duct of  public  officials  by  these  systematic  attempts  at 
bullying.  Making  all  due  allowance,  however,  there  have 
been  within  recent  years  many  significant  illustrations  of 
the  influence  of  yellow  journalism  upon  the  shaping  of 
public  events.  Mr.  Creelman  is  quite  right  in  saying,  as 
he  does  in  his  interesting  book,  On  the  Great  Highway,  that 
A  the  story  of  the  Spanish  war  is  incomplete  which  overlooks 
the  part  that  yellow  journalism  had  in  bringing  it  on.  He 
tells  us  that,  some  time  prior  to  the  commencement  of  hos- 
tilities, a  well-known  artist,  who  had  been  sent  to  Cuba  as 
a  representative  of  one  of  these  papers  and  had  there 
grown  tired  of  inaction,  telegraphed  his  chief  that  there 
was  no  prospect  of  war,  and  that  he  wished  to  come  home. 
The  reply  he  received  was  characteristic  of  the  journalism 
he  represented:  "You  furnish  the  pictures,  we  will  furnish 
the  war."  It  is  characteristic  because  the  new  journalism 
aims  to  direct  rather  than  to  influence,  and  seeks,  to  an 
extent  never  attempted  or  conceived  by  the  journalism  it 


SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW    171 

endeavors  so  strenuously  to  supplant,  to  create  public  sen- 
timent rather  than  to  mould  it,  to  make  measures  and  find 
men. 

The  larger  number  of  the  readers  of  the  great  sensational 
newspapers  live  at  or  near  the  place  of  publication,  where  .,,-,,    i 
the  half-dozen  daily  editions  can  be  placed  in  their  hands- 
hot  from  the  press.    The  news  furnished  in  them  is, 
the  most  part,  of  distinctively  local  interest.     In  their    w      .  , 
columns  the  horizon  is  narrow  and  inexpressibly  dingy.  77^ 
Detailed  narrations  of  sensational  local  happenings,  pref- 
erably crimes  and  scandals,  are  given  conspicuous  places, 
while  more  important  events  occurring  outside  the  city 
limits  are  treated  with  telegraphic  brevity.    These  papers 
constitute  beyond  question  the  greatest  provincializing  in- 
fluence in  metropolitan  life. 

The  particular  local  functions  of  sensational  journalism 
which  bring  it  in  close  relation  to  the  courts  result  from  its 
self-imposed  responsibilities  as  detective  and  punisher  of  0  ^mfc 
crime  and  as  director  of  municipal  officials.    So  far  as  the    'T 
latter  are  concerned,  yellow  journalism  has  apparently  a  -• 
good  record.    Many  recent  instances  might,  for  example, 
be  cited  where  these  newspapers,  acting  under  the  names 
of  "dummy"  plaintiffs,  have  sought  and  obtained  pi 
liminary  or  temporary  injunctions  against  threatened  offi- 
cial malfeasance,  or  where  they  have  instituted  legal  pro- 
ceedings to  expose  corrupt  jobbery.    As  to  the  actual  re- 
sults thus  accomplished,  other  than  the  publicity  obtained,  ^"^ 
the  general  public  is  not  in  a  position  to  judge.    Tempo- 
rary injunctions  granted  merely  until  the  merits  of 
case  can  be  heard  and  determined  are  of  no  particular 
value  if,  when  the  trial  day  comes,  the  newspaper  plaintiff   <  , jr - 
fails  to  appear,  the  case  is  dismissed,  and  the  temporary  **" 
injunction  vacated.    On  such  occasions,  and  they  are  more 
frequent  than  the  general  public  is  aware,  the  newspaper 


LA  -.        '-A  fr.T-j:  ^. 


172   SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW 

takes  little  pains  to  inform  its  readers  of  the  final  results 
of  the  matter  over  which  it  made  such  hue  and  cry  months 
before. 

But,  however  fair-minded  persons  may  differ  as  to  the 
results  actually  obtained  by  these  newspaper  law  enter- 
prises in  the  civil  courts,  there  is  less  room  for  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  the  methods  with  which  they  are  con- 
ducted. They  are  almost  invariably  so  managed  as  to 
convey  to  the  minds  of  their  readers  the  idea  that  the 
decision  obtained,  if  a  favorable  one,  has  not  come  as  the 
result  of  a  just  rule  of  law  laid  down  by  a  wise  and  fair- 
minded  judge,  but  has  been  obtained  rather  in  spite  of  both 
law  and  judge,  and  wholly  because  a  newspaper  of  enor- 
mous circulation,  championing  the  cause  of  the  people, 
has  wrested  the  law  to  its  clamorous  authority.  The  atti- 
tude of  mind  thus  created  is  well  exemplified  in  a  remark 
made  to  me  by  a  business  man  of  more  than  ordinary 
intelligence,  in  discussing  an  injunction  granted  in  one  of 
these  newspaper  suits  arising  out  of  a  water  scandal: 
"Why,  of  course  Judge  -  -  granted  the  injunction. 
Everybody  knew  he  would.  There  is  not  a  judge  on  the 
bench  who  would  have  the  nerve  to  decide  the  other  way 
with  all  the  row  the  newspapers  have  made  about  it.  He 
knows  where  his  bread  is  buttered." 


n 

One  of  the  great  features  of  counting-house  journalism 
is  its  real  or  supposed  ability  in  the  detection  and  punish- 
ment of  crime.  Whether  this  field  is  a  legitimate  one  for 
a  newspaper  to  enter  need  not  be  discussed  here.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  an  interesting  murder  mystery  sells 
many  papers,  and  if  as  a  result  of  skillful  detective  work 
the  guilty  party  is  finally  brought  to  the  gallows  or  the 


SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW    173 

electric  chair,  it  is  a  triumph  for  the  paper  whose  reporters 
are  the  sleuths.  While  such  efforts,  when  crowned  with  f 
success,  are  the  source  probably  of  much  credit  and  reve- 
nue,  there  are  various  disagreeable  possibilities  connected 
with  failure  which  the  astute  managers  of  these  papers  can 
never  afford  to  overlook.  While  verdicts  in  libel  suits  are 
in  this  country  generally  small  (compared  with  those  in 
England),  and  the  libel  law  itself  is  filled  with  curious  and 
antiquated  technicalities  by  which  verdicts  may  be  avoided 
or  reversed,  nevertheless  there  is  always  the  possibility  that 
an  innocent  victim  of  newspaper  prosecution  will  turn  the 
tables  and  draw  smart  money  from  the  enterprising  jour- 
nal's coffers.  The  acquittal  of  the  person  who  has  been 
thrust  into  jeopardy  by  newspaper  detectives  is  obviously 
a  serious  matter  for  the  paper.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
are  no  important  consequences  from  conviction  except,  of 
course,  to  the  person  condemned.  Is  it  to  be  expected  that 
the  newspaper,  under  such  circumstances,  will  preserve  a 
disinterested  and  impartial  tone  in  its  news  columns  while 
the  man  in  the  dock  is  fighting  for  his  life  before  the  judge 
and  jury?  Is  it  remarkable  that  during  the  course  of  such 
a  trial  the  newspaper  should  fill  its  pages  with  ghastly  car- 
toons of  the  defendant,  with  murder  drawn  in  every  line 
of  his  face,  or  that  it  should  by  its  reports  of  the  trial  itself 
seek  to  impress  its  readers  with  his  guilt  before  it  be  proved 
according  to  law?  that  it  should  send  its  reporters  explor- 
ing for  new  witnesses  for  the  prosecution,  and  should  pub- 
lish in  advance  of  their  appearance  on  the  witness  stand 
the  substance  of  the  damaging  testimony  it  is  claimed  they 
will  give?  that  it  should  go  even  further,  and  (as  was  re- 
cently shown  in  the  course  of  a  great  poisoning  case  in  New 
York  city,  the  history  of  which  forms  a  striking  commen- 
tary on  all  these  abuses)  actually  pay  large  sums  of  money 


174    SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW 

to  induce  persons  to  make  affidavits  incriminating  the 
defendant  on  trial? 

Unfortunately,  too  often  these  efforts  receive  aid  from 
prosecuting  officers  whose  sense  of  public  duty  is  impaired 
or  destroyed  by  the  itch  for  reputation  and  a  cheap  and 
tawdry  type  of  forensic  triumph.  Despicable  enough  is 
the  district  attorney  who  grants  interviews  to  newspaper 
reporters  during  the  progress  of  a  criminal  trial,  and 
who  makes  daily  statements  to  them  of  what  he  intends 
to  prove  on  the  morrow  unless  prevented  by  the  law  as 
expounded  by  the  trial  judge.  A  careful  study  of  the 
progress  of  more  than  one  great  criminal  trial  in  New 
York  City  would  show  how  illegal  and  improper  matter 
prejudicial  to  the  person  accused  of  crime  has  been  ruled 
out  by  the  trial  court,  only  to  have  the  precise  information 
spread  about  in  thousands  upon  thousands  of  copies  of 
sensational  newspapers,  with  a  reasonable  certainty  of 
their  scare  headlines,  at  least,  being  read  by  some  of  the 
jury. 

The  pernicious  influence  of  these  journals  upon  the 
courts  of  justice  in  criminal  trials  (and  not  merely  in  the 
comparatively  small  number  in  which  they  are  themselves 
the  instigators  of  the  criminal  proceedings)  is  that  they 
often  make  fair  play  an  impossibility.  The  days  and  weeks 
that  are  now  not  infrequently  given  to  selecting  jurors  in 
important  criminal  cases  are  spent  in  large  measure  by 
counsel  in  examining  talesmen  in  an  endeavor  to  find,  if 
possible,  twelve  men  in  whose  minds  the  accused  has  not 
been  already  "tried  by  newspaper"  and  condemned  or 
acquitted.  When  the  public  feeling  in  a  community  is 
such  that  it  will  be  impossible  for  a  party  to  an  action  to 
obtain  an  unprejudiced  jury,  a  change  of  venue  is  allowed 
to  some  other  county  where  the  state  of  the  public  mind 
is  more  judicial.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  nearly  all 


SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW 

applications  for  such  change  in  the  place  of  trial  from  New 
York  City  have  been  for  many  years  based  mainly  upon 
complaints  of  the  inflammatory  zeal  of  the  sensational 
press. 

The  courts  in  Massachusetts  (where  judges  are  not 
elected  by  the  people,  but  are  appointed  by  the  governor) 
have  been  very  prompt  in  dealing  in  a  very  wholesome  and 
summary  way  with  editors  of  papers  publishing  matter 
calculated  to  affect  improperly  the  fairness  of  jury  trials. 
Whether  it  be  from  better  principles  or  an  inspiring  fear  of 
jail,  the  courts  of  public  justice  in  that  state  receive  little 
interference  from  unwarranted  newspaper  stories.  Some 
of  the  cases  in  which  summary  punishment  has  been  meted 
out  from  the  bench  to  Massachusetts  editors  will  impress 
New  York  readers  rather  curiously.  For  example,  just 
before  the  trial  of  a  case  involving  the  amount  of  compen- 
sation the  owner  of  land  should  receive  for  his  land  taken 
for  a  public  purpose,  a  newspaper  in  Worcester  informed 
its  readers  that  "the  town  offered  Loring  [the  plaintiff] 
$80  at  the  time  of  the  taking,  but  he  demanded  $250,  and 
not  getting  it,  went  to  law."  Another  paper  published 
substantially  the  same  statement,  and  both  were  sum- 
marily punished  by  fine,  the  court  holding  that  these 
articles  were  calculated  to  obstruct  the  course  of  justice, 
and  that  they  constituted  contempt  of  court.  During  the 
trial  of  a  criminal  prosecution  in  Boston  a  few  years  ago 
against  a  railway  engineer  for  manslaughter  in  wrecking 
his  train,  the  editor  of  the  Boston  Traveler  intimated  edi- 
torially that  the  railway  company  was  trying  to  put  the 
blame  on  the  engineer  as  a  scapegoat,  and  that  the  result 
of  the  trial  would  probably  be  in  his  favor.  The  editor 
was  sentenced  to  jail  for  this  publication.  The  foregoing 
are  undoubtedly  extreme  cases,  and  are  chosen  simply  to 
show  the  extent  to  which  some  American  courts  will  go  in 


176   SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW 

punishing  newspaper  contempts.  All  of  these  decisions 
were  taken  on  appeal  to  the  highest  court  of  the  state  and 
were  there  affirmed.  The  California  courts  have  been 
equally  vigorous  in  several  cases  of  recent  years,  notably 
in  connection  with  publications  made  during  the  celebra- 
ted Durant  murder  trial  in  San  Francisco. 

The  English  courts  are,  if  anything,  even  more  severe 
in  this  class  of  cases,  a  recent  decision  of  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench  being  a  noteworthy  illustration.  During 
the  trial  of  two  persons  for  felony,  the  "special  crime  in- 
vestigator" of  the  Bristol  Weekly  Dispatch  sent  to  his 
paper  reports,  couched  in  a  fervid  and  sensational  form, 
containing  a  number  of  statements  relating  to  matters  as 
to  which  evidence  would  not  have  been  admissible  in  any 
event  against  the  defendants  on  their  trial,  and  reflect- 
ing severely  on  their  characters.  Both  of  the  defendants 
referred  to  were  convicted  of  the  crime  for  which  they 
were  indicted,  and  sentenced  to  long  terms  of  imprison- 
ment. Shortly  after  their  conviction  and  sentence  the  edi- 
tor of  the  Dispatch  and  this  special  crime  investigator  were 
prosecuted  criminally  for  perverting  the  course  of  justice, 
and  each  of  them  was  sentenced  to  six  weeks  in  prison. 
Lord  Alverstone,  who  rendered  the  opinion  on  the  appeal 
taken  by  the  editor  and  reporter,  in  affirming  the  judgment 
of  conviction,  expresses  himself  in  language  well  worth 
repeating.  He  says:1 - 

"A  person  accused  of  crime  in  this  country  can  properly 
be  convicted  in  a  court  of  justice  only  upon  evidence  which 
is  legally  admissible,  and  which  is  adduced  at  his  trial  in 
legal  form  and  shape.  Though  the  accused  be  really  guilty 
of  the  offense  charged  against  him,  the  due  course  of  law 
and  justice  is  nevertheless  perverted  and  obstructed  if 

1 1  K.  B.  (1902),  77.— G.  W.  A. 


SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW    177 

those  who  have  to  try  him  are  induced  to  approach  the 
question  of  his  guilt  or  innocence  with  minds  into  which 
prejudice  has  been  instilled  by  published  assertions  of  his 
guilt,  or  imputations  against  his  life  and  character  to  which 
the  laws  of  the  land  refuse  admission  as  evidence." 

In  the  state  of  New  York  the  courts  have  permitted 
themselves  to  be  deprived  of  the  greater  portion  of  the 
power  which  the  courts  of  Massachusetts,  in  common  with 
those  of  most  of  the  states,  exercise  of  punishing  for  con- 
tempt the  authors  of  newspaper  publications  prejudicial 
to  fair  trials.  Some  twenty-five  years  ago  the  state  legis- 
lature passed  an  act  defining  and  limiting  the  cases  in 
which  summary  punishment  for  contempt  should  be  in- 
flicted by  the  courts.  Similar  legislation  has  been  at- 
tempted in  other  states,  only  to  be  declared  unconstitu- 
tional by  the  courts  themselves,  which  hold  that  the  power 
to  punish  is  inherent  in  the  judiciary  independently  of  legis- 
lative authority,  and  that,  as  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio 
says,  "The  power  the  legislature  does  not  give,  it  cannot 
take  away."  But  while  the  courts  of  Ohio,  Virginia, 
Georgia,  Indiana,  Kentucky,  Arkansas,  Colorado,  and 
California  have  thus  resisted  legislative  encroachment  upon 
their  constitutional  powers,  the  highest  court  of  New  York 
has  submitted  to  having  its  power  to  protect  its  own  use- 
fulness and  dignity  shorn  and  curtailed  by  the  legislature. 
The  result  is  that  while  by  legislative  permission  they  may 
punish  the  editor  or  proprietor  of  a  paper  for  contempt,  it 
can  be  only  when  the  offense  consists  in  publishing  "a 
false  or  grossly  inaccurate  report  of  a  judicial  proceeding." 
The  insufficiency  of  such  a  power  is  apparent  when  one 
considers  that  the  greater  number  of  the  cartoons  and 
comments  contained  in  publications  fairly  complained  of 
as  prejudicing  individual  legal  rights  are  not,  and  do  not 
pretend  to  be,  reports  of  judicial  proceedings  at  all,  but 


178   SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW 

are  entirely  accounts  of  matters  "outside  the  record."  If 
the  acts  done,  for  example,  in  any  of  the  cases  cited  as 
illustrations  above,  had  been  done  under  similar  circum- 
stances in  New  York,  the  New  York  courts  would  have 
been  powerless  to  take  any  proceeding  whatever  in  the 
nature  of  contempt  against  the  respective  offenders.  The 
result  is  that  in  the  state  which  suffers  most  from  the  gross 
and  unbridled  license  of  a  sensational  and  lawless  press  the 
courts  possess  the  least  power  to  repress  and  restrain  its 
excesses.  A  change  of  law  which  shall  give  New  York 
courts  power  to  deal  summarily  with  trial  by  newspaper  is 
imperatively  needed. 

To  the  two  examples  which  have  just  been  given  of  the 
direct  influence  which  counting-house  journalism  seeks  to 
exert  upon  judges  and  jurors,  might  be  added  others  of 
equal  importance,  would  space  permit.  But  all  improper 
influences  upon  legislators  or  other  public  officials,  or  upon 
judges  or  jurors,  which  these  papers  may  exercise  or  at- 
tempt to  exercise,  are  as  naught  in  comparison  with  their 
1  systematic  and  constant  efforts  to  instill  into  the  minds  of 
|the  ignorant  and  poor,  who  constitute  the  greater  part  of 
their  readers,  the  impression  that  justice  is  not  blind  but 
bought;  that  the  great  corporations  own  the  judges,  par- 
|  ticularly  those  of  the  Federal  courts,  body  and  soul;  that 
American  institutions  are  rotten  to  the  core,  and  that  leg- 
islative halls  and  courts  of  justice  exist  as  instruments  of 
oppression,  to  preserve  the  rights  of  property  by  deny- 
ing or  destroying  the  rights  of  man.  No  greater  injury 
can  be  done  to  the  working  people  than  to  create  in  their 
minds  this  false  and  groundless  suspicion  concerning  the 
integrity  of  the  judiciary.  In  a  country  whose  political 
existence,  in  the  ultimate  analysis,  depends  so  largely  upon 
the  intelligence  and  honesty  of  its  judges,  the  general  wel- 
fare requires,  not  merely  that  judges  should  be  men  of 


SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW    179 

integrity,  but  that  the  people  should  believe  them  to  be  so. 
It  is  this  confidence  which  counting-house  journalism  has 
set  itself  deliberately  at  undermining.  It  is  not  so  impor- 
tant that  the  people  should  believe  in  the  wisdom  of  their 
judges.  The  liberty  of  criticism  is  not  confined  to  the  bar 
and  what  Judge  Grover  used  to  call  "the  lawyer's  inalien- 
able privilege  of  damning  the  adverse  judge  —  out  of 
court."  There  is  no  divinity  which  hedges  a  judge.  His 
opinions  and  his  personality  are  proper  subjects  for  criti- 
cism, but  the  charge  of  corruption  should  not  be  made 
recklessly  and  without  good  cause. 

It  is  noticeable  that  this  charge  of  corruption  which 
yellow  journalism  makes  against  the  courts  is  almost  in- 
variably a  wholesale  charge,  never  accompanied  by  any 
specific  accusation  against  any  definite  official.  These 
general  charges  are  more  frequently  expressed  by  cartoon 
than  by  comment.  The  big-chested  Carthaginian  labeled 
"The  Trusts,"  holding  a  squirming  Federal  judge  in  his 
fist,  is  a  cartoon  which  in  one  form  or  another  appears 
in  some  of  these  papers  whenever  an  injunction  is  granted 
in  a  labor  dispute  at  the  instance  of  some  great  corpora- 
tion. Justice  holding  her  scales  with  a  workingman  un- 
evenly balanced  by  an  immense  bag  of  gold;  a  human 
basilisk  with  dollar  marks  on  his  clothes,  a  judge  sticking 
out  of  his  pocket,  and  a  workingman  under  his  foot;  Jus- 
tice holding  her  scales  in  one  hand  while  the  other  is 
conveniently  open  to  receive  the  bribe  that  is  being 
placed  in  it  —  these  and  many  other  cartoons  of  similar 
character  and  meaning  are  familiar  to  all  readers  of  sensa- 
tional newspapers.  If  their  readers  believe  the  cartoons, 
what  faith  can  they  have  left  in  American  institutions? 
What  alternative  is  offered  but  anarchy  if  wealth  has 
poisoned  the  fountains  of  justice;  if  reason  is  powerless 


180   SENSATIONAL  JOURNALISM  AND  THE  LAW 

and  money  omnipotent?     If  the  judges  are  corrupt,  the 
political  heavens  are  empty. 

There  is  no  occasion  to  defend  the  American  judiciary 
from  charges  of  wholesale  corruption.  They  might  be 
passed  over  in  silence  if  they  were  addressed  merely  to  the 
educated  and  intelligent,  or  to  those  familiar  by  personal 
contact  with  the  actual  operations  of  the  courts.  That 
there  are  many  judicial  decisions  rendered  which  are  un- 
sound in  their  reasoning  may  be  readily  granted.  That 
some  of  the  Federal  judges  are  men  of  very  narrow  gauge, 
and  that,  during  the  recent  coal  strike  for  example,  in  grant- 
ing sweeping,  wholesale  injunctions  against  strikers  they 
have  accompanied  their  decrees  at  times  with  opinions  so 
unjudicial,  so  filled  with  mediaeval  prejudice  and  rancor 
against  legitimate  organizations  of  working  people  as  to 
rouse  the  indignation  of  right-minded  men,  may  be  ad- 
mitted. But  prejudice  and  corruption  are  totally  dis- 
similar. There  is  always  hope  that  an  honest  though 
prejudiced  man  may  in  time  see  reason.  This  hope  inspires 
patience  and  forbearance.  Justice  can  wait  with  confi- 
dence while  the  prejudiced  or  ultra-conservative  judge 
grows  wise,  and  the  principles  of  law  are  strongest  and 
surest  when  they  have  been  established  by  surmounting 
the  prejudice  and  doubts  of  many  timid  and  over-con- 
servative men.  But  justice  and  human  progress  should 
not  and  will  not  wait  until  the  corrupt  judge  becomes 
honest.  To  thoughtful  men  the  severest  charge  yet  to  be 
made  against  this  new  journalism  is  not  merely  the  influ- 
ence it  attempts  to  exert,  and  perhaps  does  exert,  in  par- 
ticular cases,  but  that,  wantonly  and  without  just  cause,  it 
endeavors  to  destroy  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  thousands 
of  newspaper  readers  a  deserved  confidence  in  the  integ- 
rity of  the  courts  and  a  patient  faith  in  the  ultimate  tri- 
umph of  justice  by  law. 


THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW 

BY   RICHARD    WASHBURN   CHILD 


A  RECENT  prosecution  by  the  People  of  New  York,  rep- 
resented by  Mr.  Jerome,  of  a  suit  for  criminal  libel,  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  the  entire  nation.  The  alleged 
libel  set  forth  in  the  complaint  had  appeared  in  Collier's 
Weekly,  stating  the  connection  of  a  certain  judge  with  a 
certain  unwholesome  publication.  The  defense  to  this 
action  was  that  the  statement  was  true;  and,  somewhat  to 
the  joy  of  all  concerned,  excepting  the  judge,  the  unwhole- 
some publication,  and  those  who  were  exposed  in  the 
course  of  trial  as  being  its  creatures,  the  jury  were  obliged 
to  find  that  this  defense  was  sound.1  From  a  lawyer's  point 
of  view  it  was  surprising  to  find  that  even  professional 
critics  and  editorial  writers  looked  upon  this  case  as  in- 
volving that  part  of  the  Common  Law  which  prescribes 
the  limits  of  criticism.  It  only  needs  to  be  pointed  out 
that  the  statement  relied  upon  as  defamation  was  a  state- 
ment of  fact,  to  show  that  the  case  against  the  Collier 
editors  involved  no  question  of  a  critic's  right  to  criticise 
or  an  editor's  right  to  express  his  opinion.  If  the  suit  had 
been  founded  on  the  criticism  of  the  contents  of  the  un- 
wholesome publication  which  had  been  offered  to  the  pub- 
lic for  those  to  read  who  would,  then  the  law  of  fair  com- 
ment would  have  controlled.  No  doubt,  however,  even 
the  trained  guides  to  the  public  taste  seldom  realize  the 

1The  verdict  for  Collier's  Weekly,  the  defendant,  was  rendered  on 
January  26,  1906.  Cf.  Collier's  Weekly,  February  10,  1906,  vol.  36.  p. 
23.— ED. 


182  THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW 

presence  of  a  law  governing  their  freedom  of  comment. 
Such  law  is  in  force  none  the  less,  and,  though  the  instinct 
to  express  only  fair  and  honest  opinion  will  generally  suf- 
fice to  prevent  a  breach  of  legal  limits,  it  is  evident  that 
the  consideration  of  the  law  upon  the  subject  is  important, 
not  only  to  the  professional  critic,  but  to  any  man  who 
has  enough  opinion  on  matters  of  public  interest  to  be 
worth  an  expression. 

It  is  public  policy  that  the  free  expression  of  opinion  on 
matters  of  public  interest  should  be  as  little  hampered  as 
possible.  Fair  comment,  says  the  law,  is  the  preventive 
of  affectation  and  folly,  the  educator  of  the  public  taste 
and  ethics,  and  the  incentive  to  progress  in  the  arts.  Often 
fair  comment  is  spoken  of  as  privileged.  But  privilege  in 
its  legal  sense  means  that  some  statement  is  allowed  to  some 
particular  person  on  some  particular  occasion  —  a  state- 
ment that  would  be  libel  or  slander  unless  it  came  within 
the  realm  of  privilege.  On  the  other  hand,  fair  comment 
is  not  the  right  of  any  particular  person  or  class,  or  the 
privilege  of  any  particular  occasion;  it  is  not  exclusively 
the  right  of  the  press  or  of  one  who  is  a  critic  in  the  sense 
that  he  is  an  expert.  Doubtless  the  newspaper  or  profes- 
sional critic  is  given  a  greater  latitude  by  juries,  who  share 
the  prevalent  and  not  ill-advised  view  that  opinion  ex- 
pressed by  the  public  press  is  usually  more  sound  than 
private  comment.  The  law,  however,  recognizes  no  such 
distinction.  Any  one  may  be  a  critic. 

In  civil  actions  of  defamation,  truth  in  a  general  way  is 
always  a  defense;  whether  the  person  against  whom  the  suit 
is  brought  has  made  a  statement  of  fact  or  opinion,  if  he 
can  prove  his  words  to  be  true,  he  is  safe  from  liability. 
Such  was  the  defense  of  the  Collier  editors  in  the  criminal 
case  mentioned  above.  Fair  comment,  however,  does  not 


THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW  185 

need  to  be  true  to  be  defended,  for  it  is,  if  we  may  use  the 
phrase,  its  own  defense.  Then  what  is  fair  comment? 

The  right  to  comment  is  confined  to  matters  which  are 
of  interest  to  the  public.  To  endeavor  to  give  a  list  of 
matters  answering  this  requirement  would  be  an  endless 
task;  even  the  courts  of  England  and  this  country  have 
passed  upon  only  a  few.  Instances  when  the  attention, 
judgment,  and  taste  of  the  public  are  called  upon  are, 
however,  most  frequent  in  the  fields  of  politics  and  of  the 
arts.  Such  are  the  acts  of  those  entrusted  with  functions 
of  government,  the  direction  of  public  institutions  and 
possibly  church  matters,  published  books,  pictures  which 
have  been  exhibited,  architecture,  theatres,  concerts,  and 
public  entertainments.  Two  reasons  prohibit  comment 
upon  that  which  has  not  become  the  affair  of  the  public  nor 
has  been  offered  to  the  attention  of  the  public :  —  the  pub- 
lic is  not  benefited  by  the  criticism  of  that  which  it  does 
not  know,  and  about  which  it  has  no  concern,  and  the  act 
of  the  doer  or  the  work  of  the  artist  against  which  the  com- 
ment is  directed  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  submitted  to 
open  criticism. 

The  requirement,  which  seems  right  in  principle,  and 
which  has  been  laid  down  many  times  in  the  remarks 
of  English  judges,  was  perhaps  overlooked  in  Battersby 
vs.  Collier,  a  New  York  case.  Colonel  Battersby,  it  ap- 
peared, was  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War,  and  for  six  years 
had  been  engaged  in  painting  a  picture  representing  the 
dramatic  meeting  of  General  Lee  and  General  Grant,  at 
which  Colonel  Battersby  was  present.  This  painting  was 
intended  for  exhibition  at  the  Columbian  Exposition.  Un- 
fortunately, a  few  days  before  Christmas,  a  young  woman 
of  a  literary  turn  of  mind  had  an  opportunity  to  view  this 
immense  canvas,  and  was  less  favorably  impressed  with 
the  painting  than  with  the  pathos  surrounding  its  incep- 


II 


184  THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW 

tion  and  development.  Accordingly  she  wrote  a  story 
headed  by  that  handiest  of  handy  titles,  The  Colonel's 
Christmas,  but  she  did  not  sufficiently  conceal  the  identity 
of  her  principal  character.  Colonel  Battersby  sued  the 
publishers,  and  for  damages  relied  upon  the  aspersions  cast 
upon  his  picture,  which  in  the  story  was  called  a  "daub." 
More  than  that,  there  occurred  in  the  narrative  these 
words:  "What  matters  it  if  the  Colonel's  ideas  of  color, 
light,  and  shade  were  a  trifle  hazy,  if  his  perspective  was 
a  something  extraordinary,  his  'breadth'  and  'treatment' 
and  'tone'  truly  marvelous,  the  Surrender  was  a  great, 
vast  picture,  and  it  was  the  Colonel's  life."  The  court  held 
('_:,  that  this  was  a  fair  criticism;  but  it  does  not  plainly  ap- 
pear that  Colonel  Battersby  had  yet  submitted  his  six- 
year  painting  to  the  attention  of  the  public,  or  that  it  had 
,  at  the  time  become  an  object  of  general  public  interest; 
and  if  it  had  not,  the  decision  would  seem  doubtful  in 

On  the  other  hand,  in  Gott  vs.  Pulsifer  there  was  in- 
volved the  "Cardiff  Giant,"  which  all  remember  as  the 
merriest  of  practical  jokes  in  rock,  which  made  Harvard 
scientists  rub  their  eyes  and  called  forth  from  one  Yale 
professor  a  magazine  article  to  prove  that  the  man  of 
stone  was  the  god  Baal  brought  to  New  York  State  by 
the  Phoenicians.  The  court  said  that  all  manner  of  abuse 
might  be  heaped  on  the  Giant's  adamant  head.  "Any- 
•\  thing  made  subject  of  public  exhibition,"  said  they,  "is 
open  to  fair  and  reasonable  comment,  no  matter  how 
severe."  So  you  might  with  impunity  call  the  Cardiff 
Giant,  or  Barnum's  famous  long-haired  horse,  a  hoax; 
they  were  objects  of  general  public  interest,  and  any  one 
might  have  passed  judgment  upon  them. 

Letters  written  to  a  newspaper  may  be  criticised  most 
severely,  as  often  happens  when  Constant  Reader  enters 


THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW  185 

into  a  warfare  of  communication  with  Old  Subscriber;  and 
so  long  as  the  contention  is  free  from  actionable  person- 
alities, and  remains  within  the  bounds  of  fair  comment, 
neither  will  find  himself  in  trouble.  Nor  is  the  commercial 
advertisement  immune  from  caustic  comment,  if  the  com- 
ment is  sincere.  The  rhymes  in  the  street  cars,  the  posters 
on  the  fences,  the  handbill  that  is  thrust  over  the  domestic 
threshold,  and  the  signboard,  that  has  now  become  a  factor 
in  every  rural  sunset  or  urban  sunrise,  must  bear  the  com- 
ment upon  their  taste,  their  efficiency,  and  their  ingenuity, 
which  by  their  very  nature  they  invite.  In  England  a 
writer  was  sued  by  the  maker  of  a  commodity  for  travelers 
advertised  as  the  "Bag  of  Bags."  The  writer  thought  the 
commercial  catch-name  was  silly,  vulgar,  and  ill-con- 
ceived, and  he  said  so.  The  manufacturer  in  court  urged 
that  the  comment  injured  his  trade;  but  the  judges  were 
inclined  to  think  that  an  advertisement  appealing  to  the 
public  was  subject  to  the  public  opinion  and  its  fair  ex- 
pression. What  is  of  interest  to  the  general  public,  so  that 
comment  thereon  will  be  a  right  of  the  public,  may,  how- 
ever, in  certain  cases  trouble  the  jury.  A  volume  of  love 
sonnets  printed  and  circulated  privately,  and  the  architec- 
ture of  a  person's  private  dwelling,  might  furnish  very 
delicate  cases. 

In  a  time  when  those  who  desire  to  be  conspicuous  suc- 
ceed so  well  in  becoming  so,  it  is  rather  amusing  to  wonder 
just  what  may  be  the  difference  between  the  right  to  com- 
ment on  the  dancer  on  the  stage,  and  on  the  lady  who,  if 
she  has  her  way,  will  sit  in  a  box.  Both  court  public 
notice  —  the  dancer  by  her  penciled  eyebrows,  her  tinted 
cheeks,  her  jewelry,  her  gown,  and  her  grace;  the  lady  in 
the  box,  perhaps,  by  all  these  things  except  the  last;  both 
wish  favorable  comment,  and  perhaps  ought  to  bear  ridi- 
cule, if  their  cheeks  are  too  tinted,  their  eyebrows  too 

14 


AND  THE  LAW 

penciled,  their  jewelry  too  generous,  and  their  gowns  too 
ornate.  A  more  sober  view,  however,  will  show  that  the 
matter  is  one  of  proof.  The  dancer  who  exhibits  herself 
and  her  dance  for  a  consideration  necessarily  invites  ex- 
pressions of  opinion,  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  show  in  a 
court  of  law  that  the  gala  lady  in  the  box  meant  to  seek 
either  commendation  —  or  disapproval. 

A  vastly  more  important  and  interesting  query,  and  one 
which  must  arise  from  the  present  state  and  tendency  of 
industrial  conditions,  is  whether  the  acts  of  men  in  com- 
mercial activity  may  ever  become  so  prominent,  and  so 
far-reaching  in  their  effect,  that  it  can  well  be  said  that 
they  compel  a  universal  public  interest,  and  that  public 
comment  is  impliedly  invited  by  reason  of  their  conspic- 
uous and  semi-public  nature.  It  may  be  said  that  at  no 
time  have  private  industries  become  of  such  startling  inter- 
est to  the  community  at  large  as  at  present  in  the  United 
States.  At  least  a  few  have  had  an  effect  more  vital  to 
citizens,  perhaps,  than  the  activities  of  some  classes  of 
public  officials  which  are  open  to  fair  comment,  and  cer- 
tainly more  vital  than  the  management  of  some  semi- 
public  institutions,  which  also  are  open  to  honest  criti- 
cism. 

As  to  corporations,  it  would  seem  that,  as  the  public, 
through  the  chartering  power  of  legislation,  gives  them  a 
right  to  exist  and  act,  an  argument  that  the  public  retains 
the  right  to  comment  upon  then*  management  must  have 
some  force;  in  the  case  of  other  forms  of  commercial  activ- 
ity, whose  powers  are  inherent  and  not  delegated,  the  ques- 
tion must  rest  on  the  determination  of  the  best  public 
policy  —  a  determination  which  in  all  classes  of  cases  de- 
cides, and  ought  to  decide,  the  right  of  fair  comment. 


THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW  187 


ii 

When  once  the  comment  is  decided  to  be  upon  a  matter 
of  public  interest,  there  arises  the  question  whether  or 
not  the  comment  is  fair.  The  requirement  of  the  law  in 
regard  to  fairness  is  not  based,  as  might  be  supposed, 
upon  the  consideration  whether  comment  is  mild  or  se- 
vere, serious  or  ridiculing,  temperate  or  exaggerated;  the 
critic  is  not  hampered  in  the  free  play  of  his  honest  opin- 
ions; he  is  not  prohibited  from  using  the  most  stinging 
satire,  the  most  extravagant  burlesque,  or  the  most  lacer- 
ating invective. 

In  1808,  Lord  Ellenborough,  in  Carr  vs.  Hood,  stated 
the  length  of  leash  given  to  the  critic,  and  the  law  has  not 
since  been  changed.  Sir  John  Carr,  Knight,  was  the 
author  of  several  volumes,  entitled  A  Stranger  in  France, 
A  Northern  Summer,  A  Stranger  in  Ireland,  and  other  titles 
of  equal  connotation.  Thomas  Hood  was  rather  more 
deserving  of  a  lasting  place  in  literature  than  his  victim, 
because  of  his  sense  of  humor,  and  his  well-known  rapid- 
fire  satire.  According  to  the  declaration  of  Sir  John  Carr, 
the  plaintiff,  Hood  had  published  a  book  of  burlesque  in 
which  there  was  a  frontispiece  entitled  "The  Knight  leav- 
ing Ireland  with  Regret,"  and  "containing  and  represent- 
ing in  the  said  print,  a  certain  false,  scandalous,  malicious 
and  defamatory  and  ridiculous  representation  of  said  Sir 
John  in  the  form  of  a  man  of  ludicrous  and  ridiculous  ap- 
pearance holding  a  pocket  handkerchief  to  his  face,  and 
appearing  to  be  weeping,"  and  also  representing  "a  mali- 
cious and  ridiculous  man  of  ludicrous  and  ridiculous  appear- 
ance following  the  said  Sir  John,"  and  bending  under  the 
weight  of  several  books,  and  carrying  a  tied-up  pocket 
handkerchief  with  "Wardrobe"  printed  thereon,  "thereby 
falsely  scandalously  and  maliciously  meaning  and  intend- 


188  THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW 

ing  to  represent,  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  the  said  Sir 
John  ridiculous  and  exposing  him  to  laughter,  ridicule  and 
contempt,"  that  the  books  of  the  said  Sir  John  "were  so 
heavy  as  to  cause  a  man  to  bend  under  the  weight  thereof, 
and  that  his  the  said  Sir  John's  wardrobe  was  very  small 
and  capable  of  being  contained  in  a  pocket  handkerchief." 
And  at  the  end  of  this  declaration  Sir  John  alleged  that 
he  was  damaged  because  of  the  consequent  decline  in  his 
literary  reputation,  and,  it  may  be  supposed,  because  there- 
after his  books  did  not  appear  in  the  list  of  the  "six  best- 
sellers" in  the  Kingdom. 

But  no  recovery  was  allowed  him,  for  it  was  laid  down 
that  if  a  comment,  in  whatever  form,  only  ridiculed  the 
plaintiff  as  an  author,  there  was  no  ground  for  action.  Said 
the  eminent  justice,  "One  writer,  in  exposing  the  follies 
and  errors  of  another,  may  make  use  of  ridicule,  however 
poignant.  Ridicule  is  often  the  fittest  weapon  for  such  a 
purpose.  .  .  .  Perhaps  the  plaintiff's  works  are  now  un- 
salable, but  is  he  to  be  indemnified  by  receiving  a  com- 
pensation from  the  person  who  has  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
public  to  the  bad  taste  and  inanity  of  his  compositions? 
.  .  .  We  must  not  cramp  observations  on  authors  and 
their  works.  .  .  .  The  critic  does  a  great  service  to  the 
public  who  writes  down  any  vapid  or  useless  publication, 
such  as  ought  never  to  have  appeared.  He  checks  the  dis- 
semination of  bad  taste,  and  prevents  people  from  wasting 
both  their  time  and  money  upon  trash.  Fair  and  candid 
criticism  every  one  has  a  right  to  publish,  although  the 
author  may  suffer  a  loss  from  it.  Such  a  loss  the  law  does 
not  consider  an  injury,  because  it  is  a  loss  which  the  party 
ought  to  sustain.  It  is,  in  short,  the  loss  of  fame  and 
profits  to  which  he  was  never  entitled." 

Criticism  need  not  be  fair  and  just,  in  the  sense  that  it 
conforms  to  the  judgment  of  the  majority  of  the  public,  or 


THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW  189 

the  ideas  of  a  judge,  or  the  estimate  of  a  jury;  but  it  must 
remain  within  certain  bounds  circumscribed  by  the  law. 

In  the  first  place,  comment  must  be  made  honestly;  in 
recent  cases  much  more  stress  has  been  laid  upon  this  point 
than  formerly.  It  is  urged  that,  if  criticism  is  not  sincere, 
it  is  not  valuable  to  the  public,  and  the  ground  of  public 
policy,  upon  which  the  doctrine  of  fair  criticism  is  built, 
fails  to  give  support  to  comment  which  is  born  of  improper 
motives  or  begotten  from  personal  hatred  or  malice.  Yet 
he  who  seeks  for  cases  of  criticism  which  have  been  decided 
against  the  critic  solely  on  the  ground  that  the  critic  was 
malicious  must  look  far.  The  requirement  in  practice 
seems  difficult  of  application,  since,  if  the  critic  does  not 
depart  from  the  work  that  he  is  criticising,  to  strike  at  the 
author  thereof  as  a  private  individual,  and  does  not  mix 
with  his  comment  false  statements  or  imputations  of  bad 
motives,  there  is  nothing  to  show  legal  malice,  and  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  prove  actual  malice.  If  you  should 
conclude  that  your  neighbor's  painting  which  has  been  on 
exhibition  is  a  beautiful  marine,  but  if,  because  you  do  not 
like  your  neighbor,  you  pronounce  it  to  be  a  dreadful  mire 
of  blue  paint,  it  would  be  very  hard  for  any  other  person 
to  prove  that  at  the  moment  you  spoke  you  were  not 
speaking  honestly.  Again,  if  the  comment  is  within  the 
other  restrictions  put  by  the  law  upon  criticism,  it  would 
seem  that  to  open  the  question  whether  or  not  the  com- 
ment was  malicious,  is  in  effect  very  nearly  submitting  to 
the  jury  the  question  whether  or  not  they  disagree  with 
the  critic,  since  the  jury  have  no  other  method  of  reaching 
a  conclusion  that  the  critic  was  or  was  not  impelled  by 
malice. 

Malice,  in  fact,  is  a  bugaboo  in  the  law  —  and  the  law, 
especially  the  civil  law,  avoids  dealing  with  him  whenever 
it  can.  Yet  it  is  quite  certain  that  malice  must  be  a  con- 


190  THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW 

sideration  in  determining  what  is  fair  comment;  an  opinion 
which  is  not  honest  is  of  no  help  to  the  public  in  its  striving 
to  attain  high  morals  and  unerring  discernment.  All  the 
reasons  of  public  policy  that  give  criticism  its  rights  fly 
out  of  the  window  when  malice  walks  in  at  the  door. 

Some  decisions  of  the  courts  seem  to  set  the  standard  of 
fair  comment  even  higher.  They  not  only  demand  that 
the  critic  speak  with  an  honest  belief  in  his  opinion,  but 
insist  also  that  a  person  taking  upon  himself  to  criticise 
must  exercise  a  reasonable  degree  of  judgment.  As  one 
English  judge  expressed  it  in  charging  the  jury:  "You 
must  determine  whether  any  fair  man,  however  exagger- 
ated or  obstinate  his  views,  would  have  said  what  this 
criticism  has  said."  It  would  seem,  however,  that  in  many 
cases  this  would  result  in  putting  the  judgment  of  the  jury 
against  that  of  the  critic.  To  ask  the  jury  whether  this 
comment  is  such  as  would  be  made  by  a  fair  man  is  not 
distinguishable  from  asking  them  whether  the  comment  is 
fair,  and  it  sometimes  happens  that,  in  spite  of  the  opinion 
of  the  jury,  —  in  fact,  the  opinion  of  all  the  world,  —  the 
single  critic  is  right,  and  the  rest  of  the  community  all 
wrong.  Does  any  one  doubt  that  the  comment  of  Colum- 
bus upon  the  views  of  those  who  opposed  him  would  have 
been  considered  unfair  by  a  jury  of  his  time,  until  this 
doughty  navigator  proved  his  judgment  correct?  What 
would  have  happened  in  a  court  of  law  to  the  man  who 
first  said  that  those  who  wrote  that  the  earth  was  flat  were 
stupidly  ignorant?  Often  the  opinion  or  criticism  which  is 
the  most  valuable  to  the  community  as  a  contribution  to 
truth  is  the  very  opinion  which  the  community  as  a  body 
would  call  a  wild  inference  by  an  unfair  man;  to  hold  the 
critic  up  to  the  standard  of  a  "fair  man"  is  to  deprive  the 
public  of  the  benefit  of  the  most  powerful  influences  against 
the  perpetuity  of  error. 


THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW  191 

No  better  illustration  could  be  found  than  the  case  of 
Merrivale  and  Wife  vs.  Carson,  in  which  a  dramatic  critic 
said  of  a  play:  "The  Whip  Hand  .  .  .  gives  us  nothing 
but  a  hash-up  of  ingredients  which  have  been  used  ad 
nauseam,  until  one  rises  in  protestation  against  the  loving, 
confiding,  fatuous  husband  with  the  naughty  wife,  and  her 
double  existence,  the  good  male  genius,  the  limp  aristo- 
crat, and  the  villainous  foreigner.  And  why  dramatic 
authors  will  insist  that  in  modern  society  comedies  the 
villain  must  be  a  foreigner,  and  the  foreigner  must  be  a 
villain,  is  only  explicable  on  the  ground  that  there  is  more 
or  less  romance  about  such  gentry.  It  is  more  in  con- 
sonance with  accepted  notions  that  your  continental  crou- 
pier would  make  a  much  better  fictitious  prince,  marquis, 
or  count,  than  would,  say,  an  English  billiard-maker  or 
stable  lout.  And  so  the  Marquis  Colonna  in  The  Whip 
Hand  is  offered  up  by  the  authors  upon  the  altar  of  tradi- 
tion, and  sacrificed  in  the  usual  manner  when  he  gets  too 
troublesome  to  permit  of  the  reconciliation  of  husband  and 
wife  and  lover  and  maiden,  and  is  proved,  also  much  as 
usual,  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  kicked-out  croupier." 

The  jury  found  that  this  amounted  to  falsely  setting 
out  the  drama  as  adulterous  and  immoral,  and  was  not  the 
criticism  of  a  fair  man.  Granting  that  there  was  the  gen- 
eral imputation  of  immorality,  it  seems,  justly  considered, 
a  matter  of  the  critic's  opinion.  Is  not  the  critic  in  effect 
saying,  "To  my  mind  the  play  is  adulterous;  no  matter 
what  any  one  else  may  think,  the  play  suggests  immorality 
to  me"?  And  if  this  is  the  honest  opinion  of  the  critic,  no 
matter  how  much  juries  may  differ  from  him,  it  would 
seem  that  to  stifle  this  individual  expression  was  against 
public  policy,  the  very  ground  on  which  fair  criticism  be- 
comes a  universal  right.  It  does  not  very  clearly  appear 
that  the  case  of  Merrivale  and  Wife  vs.  Carson  was  decided 


192  THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW 

exclusively  on  the  question  whether  the  criticism  was  that 
of  a  fair  man,  but  this  was  the  leading  point  of  the  case. 
The  decision  and  the  doctrine  it  sets  forth  seem  open  to 
much  doubt. 

in 

Criticism  must  never  depart  from  a  consideration  of  the 
work  of  the  artist  or  artisan,  or  the  public  acts  of  a  person, 
to  attack  the  individual  himself,  apart  from  his  connec- 
tion with  the  particular  work  or  act  which  is  being  criti- 
cised. The  critic  is  forbidden  to  touch  upon  the  domestic 
or  private  life  of  the  individual,  or  upon  such  matters  con- 
cerning the  individual  as  are  not  of  general  public  interest, 
at  the  peril  of  exceeding  his  right.  Whereas,  in  Fry  vs. 
Bennett,  an  article  in  a  newspaper  purported  to  criticise 
the  management  of  a  theatrical  troupe,  it  was  held  to  con- 
tain a  libel,  since  it  went  beyond  matters  which  concerned 
the  public,  and  branded  the  conduct  of  the  manager  to- 
ward his  singers  as  unjust  and  oppressive. 

J.  Fenimore  Cooper  was  plaintiff  in  another  suit  which 
illustrates  the  same  rule  of  law.  This  author  had  many 
a  gallant  engagement  with  his  critics,  and,  though  it  has 
been  said  that  a  man  who  is  his  own  lawyer  has  a  fool  for 
a  client,  Mr.  Cooper,  conducting  his  own  actions,  won 
from  many  publishers,  including  Mr.  Horace  Greeley  and 
Mr.  Webb.  In  Cooper  vs.  Stone  the  facts  reveal  that  the 
author,  having  completed  a  voluminous  Naval  History  of 
the  United  States,  in  which  he  had  given  the  lion's  share 
of  credit  for  the  Battle  of  Lake  Erie,  not  to  the  command- 
ing officer,  Oliver  H.  Perry,  but  to  Jesse  D.  Elliot,  who 
was  a  subordinate,  was  attacked  by  the  New  York  Com- 
mercial Advertiser,  which  imputed  to  the  author  "a  disre- 
gard of  justice  and  propriety  as  a  man,"  represented  him 
as  infatuated  with  vanity,  mad  with  passion,  and  publish- 


THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW  193 

ing  as  true,  statements  and  evidence  which  had  been 
falsified  and  encomiums  which  had  been  retracted.  This 
was  held  to  exceed  the  limits  of  fair  criticism,  since  it  at- 
tacked the  character  of  the  author  as  well  as  the  book 
itself. 

The  line,  however,  is  not  very  finely  drawn,  as  may  be 
seen  by  a  comparison  of  the  above  case  with  Browning  vs. 
Van  Rensselaer,  in  which  the  plaintiff  was  the  author  of  a 
genealogical  treatise  entitled  Americans  of  Royal  Descent. 
A  young  woman,  who  was  interested  in  founding  a  society 
to  be  called  the  "Order  of  the  Crown,  "wrote  to  the  defend- 
ant, inviting  her  to  join  and  recommending  to  her  the  book. 
The  latter  answered  this  letter  with  a  polite  refusal,  say- 
ing that  she  thought  such  a  society  was  un-American  and 
pretentious,  and  that  the  book  gave  no  authority  for  its 
statements.  The  court  said  that  this,  even  though  it  im- 
plied that  the  author  was  at  fault,  was  not  a  personal 
attack  on  his  private  character. 

An  intimate  relationship  almost  always  exists  between 
the  doer  of  an  act  which  interests  the  public  and  the  act 
itself;  the  architect  is  closely  associated  with  his  building, 
the  painter  with  his  picture,  the  author  with  his  works, 
the  inventor  with  his  patent,  the  tradesman  with  his  adver- 
tisement, and  the  singer  with  his  song;  and  the  critic  will 
find  it  impossible  not  to  encroach  to  some  extent  upon  the 
personality  of  the  individual.  It  seems,  however,  that  the 
privilege  of  comment  extends  to  the  individual  only  so  far 
as  is  necessary  to  intelligent  criticism  of  his  particular  work 
under  discussion.  To  write  that  Mr.  Palet's  latest  picture 
shows  that  some  artists  are  only  fit  to  paint  signs  is  a  com- 
ment on  the  picture,  but  to  write,  apart  from  comment 
upon  the  particular  work,  that  Mr.  Palet  is  only  fit  to 
paint  signs  is  an  attack  upon  the  artist,  and  if  it  is  untrue, 
it  is  libel  for  which  the  law  allows  recovery. 


194  THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW 

No  case  presents  a  more  complete  confusion  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  his  work  than  that  of  an  actor.  His  physical 
characteristics,  as  well  as  his  personality,  may  always  be 
said  to  be  presented  to  general  public  interest  along  with 
the  words  and  movements  which  constitute  his  acting. 
The  critic  can  hardly  speak  of  the  performance  without 
speaking  of  the  actor  himself,  who,  it  may  be  argued,  pre- 
sents to  a  certain  extent  his  own  bodily  and  mental  char- 
acteristics to  the  judgment  of  the  public,  almost  as  much 
as  do  the  ossified  man  and  the  fat  lady  of  the  side  show. 

The  case  of  Cherry  vs.  the  Des  Moines  Leader  will  serve 
to  illustrate  how  far  the  critic  who  is  not  actuated  by  malice 
may  comment  upon  the  actors  as  well  as  the  performance, 
and  still  be  held  to  have  remained  within  the  limits  of  fair 
criticism.  The  three  Cherry  sisters  were  performers  in  a 
variety  act,  which  consisted  in  part  of  a  burlesque  on 
Trilby,  and  a  more  serious  presentation  entitled,  The 
Gypsy's  Warning.  The  judge  stated  that  in  his  opinion 
the  evidence  showed  that  the  performance  was  ridiculous. 
The  testimony  of  Miss  Cherry  included  a  statement  that 
one  of  the  songs  was  a  "sort  of  eulogy  on  ourselves,"  and 
that  the  refrain  consisted  of  these  words :  — 

"  Cherries  ripe  and  cherries  red; 
The  Cherry  Sisters  are  still  ahead." 

She  also  stated  that  in  The  Gypsy's  Warning  she  had  taken 
the  part  of  a  Spaniard  or  a  cavalier,  and  that  she  always 
supposed  a  Spaniard  and  a  cavalier  were  one  and  the  same 
thing.  The  defendant  published  the  following  comment  on 
the  performance:  "Erne  is  an  old  jade  of  fifty  summers, 
Jessie  a  frisky  filly  of  forty,  and  Addie,  the  flower  of  the 
family,  a  capering  monstrosity  of  thirty-five.  Their  long, 
skinny  arms,  equipped  with  talons  at  the  extremities, 
swung  mechanically,  and  anon  waved  frantically  at  the 


THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW  195 

suffering  audience.  The  mouths  of  their  rancid  features 
opened  like  caverns,  and  sounds  like  the  wailings  of  damned 
souls  issued  therefrom.  They  pranced  around  the  stage 
with  a  motion  that  suggested  a  cross  between  the  danse  du 
venire  and  fox-trot  —  strange  creatures  with  painted  faces 
and  hideous  mien."  This  was  held  to  be  fair  criticism  and 
not  libelous;  for  the  Misses  Cherry  to  a  certain  extent 
presented  their  personal  appearance  as  a  part  of  their 
performance. 

The  critic  must  not  mix  with  his  comment  statement  of 
facts  which  are  not  true,  since  the  statement  of  facts  is  not 
criticism  at  all.  In  Tabbart  vs.  Tipper,  the  earliest  case 
on  the  subject,  the  defendant,  in  order  to  ridicule  a  book 
published  for  children,  printed  a  verse  which  purported  to 
be  an  extract  from  the  book,  and  it  was  held  that  this 
amounted  to  a  false  accusation  that  the  author  had  pub- 
lished something  which  in  fact  he  had  never  published;  it 
was  not  comment,  but  an  untrue  statement  of  fact.  So 
when,  as  in  Davis  vs.  Shepstone,  the  critic,  in  commenting 
upon  the  acts  of  a  government  official  in  Zululand,  falsely 
stated  that  the  officer  had  been  guilty  of  an  assault  upon 
a  native  chief,  the  critic  went  far  beyond  comment,  and 
was  liable  for  defamation.  Not  unlike  Tabbart  vs.  Tipper 
is  a  recent  case,  Belknap  vs.  Ball.  The  defendant,  during 
a  political  campaign,  printed  in  his  newspaper  a  coarsely 
executed  imitation  of  the  handwriting  of  a  political  candi- 
date of  the  opposing  party,  and  an  imitation  of  his  signa- 
ture appeared  beneath.  The  writing  contained  this  mis- 
spelled, unrhetorical  sentence:  "I  don't  propose  to  go  into 
debate  on  the  tarriff  differences  on  wool,  quinine,  and  such, 
because  I  ain't  built  that  way."  Readers  were  led  to  be- 
lieve that  this  was  a  signed  statement  by  the  candidate, 
and  the  newspaper  was  barred  from  setting  up  the  plea 
that  the  writing  was  only  fair  criticism  made  through  the 


196  THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW 

means  of  a  burlesque;  it  was  held  that  imputing  to  the 
plaintiff  something  he  had  never  written  amounted  to  a 
false  statement  of  fact,  and  was  not  within  fair  comment. 

The  dividing  line  between  opinion  and  statement  of  fact 
is,  however,  most  troublesome.  Mr.  Odgers,  in  his  excel- 
lent work  on  Libel  and  Slander,  remarks  that  the  rule  for 
the  distinction  between  the  two  should  be  that  "if  facts 
are  known  to  hearers  or  readers  or  made  known  by  the 
writer,  and  their  opinion  or  criticism  refers  to  these  true 
facts,  even  if  it  is  a  statement  in  form,  it  is  no  less  an 
opinion.  But  if  the  statement  simply  stands  alone,  it  is 
not  defended."  Applying  this  rule,  what  if  a  critic  makes 
this  simple  statement:  "The  latest  book  of  Mr.  Anony- 
mous is  of  interest  to  no  intelligent  man"?  According  to 
the  opinion  of  Mr.  Odgers,  it  would  seem  that  such  a  sen- 
tence standing  alone  was  a  statement  of  fact,  whereas  it  is 
manifest  that  no  one  can  think  that  the  critic  meant  to  say 
more  than  that  in  his  opinion  the  book  was  not  interesting. 
In  Merrivale  and  Wife  vs.  Carson,  the  jury  found  that  the 
words  used  by  the  critic  described  the  play  as  adulterous, 
and  the  court  said  that  this  was  a  misdescription  of  the 
play  —  a  false  statement  of  fact;  but  an  adulterous  play 
may  be  one  which  is  only  suggestive  of  adultery;  and  even 
if  the  critic  had  baldly  said  that  the  play  was  adulterous, 
many  of  us  would  think  that  he  was  only  expressing  his 
opinion. 

Since  the  test  of  whether  the  statement  is  of  opinion  or 
of  fact  lies,  not  in  what  the  critic  secretly  intended,  but 
rather  in  what  the  hearer  or  reader  understood,  the  ques- 
tion is  for  the  jury,  and,  it  seems,  should  be  presented  to 
them  by  the  court  in  the  form:  "Would  a  reasonable  man 
under  the  circumstances  have  understood  this  to  be  a  state- 
ment of  opinion  or  of  fact?" 

One  other  care  remains  for  the  critic:  he  must  not  falsely 


may  be  found  reported  in  the  Times  for  November  26  and  *    * 
27,  1878.    "The  mannerisms  and  errors  of  these  pictures,"/    // 

* 


THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW  197 

impute  a  bad  motive  to  the  individual  when  commenting 
upon  his  work.  No  less  a  critic  than  Ruskin  was  held  to 
have  made  this  mistake  in  the  instance  of  his  criticism  of 
one  of  Mr.  Whistler's  pictures.  This  well-known  libel  case 

nd  * 

•M 

wrote  Mr.  Ruskin,  alluding  to  the  pictures  of  Mr.  Burne- 
Jones,  "whatever  may  be  their  extent,  are  never  affected 
or  indolent.  The  work  is  natural  to  the  painter,  however 
strange  to  us,  and  is  wrought  with  utmost  care,  however  -Jjffo*/ 
far,  to  his  own  or  our  desire,  the  result  may  yet  be  incom- 
plete. Scarcely  as  much  can  be  said  for  any  other  picture 
in  the  modern  school;  their  eccentricities  are  almost  always 
in  some  degree  forced,  and  their  imperfections  gratuitously 
if  not  impertinently  indulged.  For  Mr.  Whistler's  own 
sake,  no  less  than  for  the  protection  of  the  purchaser,  Sir 
Coutts  Lindsay  ought  not  to  have  admitted  works  into  the 
gallery  in  which  the  ill-educated  conceit  of  the  artist  so 
nearly  approached  the  aspect  of  wilful  imposture.  I  have 
seen  and  heard  much  of  cockney  impudence  before  now, 
but  never  expected  to  hear  a  coxcomb  ask  200  guineas  for 
flinging  a  pot  of  paint  in  the  public's  face." 

Out  of  all  this,  stinging  as  it  must  have  been  to  Mr. 
Whistler,  unless,  since  he  loved  enemies  and  hated  friends, 
he  therefore  found  pleasure  in  the  metaphorical  thrashings 
he  received,  the  jury  could  find  only  one  phrase,  "wilful 
imposture,"  which,  because  it  imputed  bad  motives,  over- 
stepped the  bounds  of  fair  criticism. 

Mr.  Odgers's  treatise  states  the  rule  to  be  that  "When 
no  ground  is  assigned  for  an  inference  of  bad  motives,  or 
when  the  writer  states  the  imputation  of  bad  motives  as  a 
fact  within  his  knowledge,  then  he  is  only  protected  if  the 
imputation  is  true.  But  when  the  facts  are  set  forth,  to- 
gether with  the  inference,  and  the  reader  may  judge  of  the 


198  THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW 

right  or  wrong  of  the  opinion  or  inference,  then  if  the  facts 
are  true,  the  writer  is  protected."  It  is,  however,  difficult 
to  see  why  the  imputation  of  bad  motives  in  the  doer  of  an 
act  or  the  creator  of  a  work  of  art  should  in  any  case  come 
under  the  right  of  fair  comment,  for,  no  matter  how  bad 
the  motives  of  the  individual  may  be,  they  are  of  no  con- 
sequence to  the  public.  If  a  book  is  immoral,  it  is  imma- 
terial to  a  fair  criticism  whether  or  not  the  author  meant 
it  to  have  an  immoral  effect;  the  public  is  not  helped  to  a 
proper  judgment  of  the  book  by  any  one's  opinion  of  the 
motives  of  the  author,  and  if  the  book  is  bad  in  its  effect, 
it  makes  it  no  better  that  the  author  was  impelled  by  the 
best  of  intentions,  or  it  makes  it  no  worse  that  the  author 
was  acting  with  the  most  evil  designs.  And  if,  as  in  most 
of  the  cases  that  have  arisen,  the  imputation  is  one  of  in- 
sincerity, fraud,  or  deception  practiced  upon  the  public,  — 
where,  for  example,  the  critic,  in  commenting  upon  a 
medical  treatise,  about  which  he  had  made  known  all  the 
facts,  said  that  he  thought  the  author  wrote  the  book,  not 
in  the  interest  of  scientific  truth,  but  rather  to  draw  trade 
by  exploiting  theories  which  he  did  not  believe  himself,  — 
it  would  seem  that  this  charge  of  fraud  or  deception  should 
not  be  protected  as  a  piece  of  fair  comment,  but  that  it 
should  be  put  upon  an  equality  with  all  other  imputations 
against  an  individual,  which  if  untrue  and  damaging  would 
be  held  to  be  libel  or  slander.  Under  Mr.  Odgers's  rule,  in 
making  a  comment  upon  the  acts  of  a  public  officer,  one 
could  say,  "In  pardoning  six  criminals  last  week  the  gov- 
ernor of  the  province,  we  think,  has  shown  that  he  wishes 
to  encourage  criminality."  No  court  would,  we  think, 
hold  this  to  be  within  the  right  of  fair  comment  upon  public 
matters.  If  the  critic  had  said,  however,  "We  think  that 
the  governor  of  the  province,  in  pardoning  six  criminals, 
encouraged  criminality,"  all  the  true  value  of  criticism 


THE  CRITIC  AND  THE  LAW  199 

remains,  and  the  imputation  that  the  public  officer  acted 
from  an  evil  motive  is  stripped  away.  The  best  view  seems 
to  be  that  the  right  of  fair  comment  will  not  shield  the 
false  imputations  of  bad  motive. 

Whether  or  not  the  critic  may  impute  to  the  individual 
certain  opinions  does  not  seem  to  be  settled,  but  logically 
this  would  be  quite  as  much  a  statement  of  fact,  or  a  criti- 
cism directed  at  the  individual,  as  an  imputation  of  bad 
motives.  A  few  courts  in  this  country  have  expressed  a 
leaning  to  the  opposite  view,  but  the  ground  upon  which 
they  place  their  opinion  does  not  appear. 

From  the  legal  point  of  view,  then,  we  as  critics  are  all 
held  to  a  high  standard  of  fairness.  We  must  not  com- 
ment upon  any  but  matters  of  public  interest.  We  must 
be  honest  and  sincere,  but  we  may  express  any  view,  no 
matter  how  prejudiced  or  exaggerated  it  may  be,  so  long 
as  it  does  not  exceed  the  limits  to  which  a  reasonably  fair 
man  would  go;  we  must  not  attack  the  individual  any 
more  than  is  consistent  with  a  criticism  of  that  which  he 
makes  or  does,  and  we  must  not  expect  that  we  are  within 
our  right  of  comment  when  we  make  statements  of  fact  or 
impute  to  the  individual  evil  motives. 

All  the  world  asks  the  critic  to  be  honest,  careful,  above 
spite  and  personalities,  and  polite  enough  not  to  thrust 
upon  us  a  consideration  in  which  we  have  no  interest.  The 
law  demands  no  more. 


- 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISE 

BY  CHARLES  MINER  THOMPSON 


THERE  are  five  groups  interested  in  literary  criticism: 
/  /0  •  ^publishers  of  books,  authors,  publishers  of  reviews,  critics, 

,   and,  finally,  the  reading  public. 

rjjh^xi  obvious  interest  of  all  the  groups  but  the  last  is 
financial.    For  the  publisher  of  books,  although  he  may 
:  >nhaVe  his  pride,  criticism  is  primarily  an  advertisement  :  he 
*&W(  I     hopes  that  his  books  will  be  so  praised  as  to  commend  them 
•^k-rto  buyers.    For  the  publisher  of  book-reviews,  although  he 
also  may  have  his  pride,  criticism  is  primarily  an  attraction 
for  advertisements:  he  hopes  that  his  reviews  will  lead 


blishers  of  books  to  advertise  in  his  columns.    For  the 
critic,  whatever  his  ideals,  criticism  is,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
Q ^    his  livelihood.    For  the  author,  no  matter  how  disinter- 
ested, criticism  is  reputation  —  perhaps  a  reputation  that 
can  be  coined.    In  respect  of  this  financial  interest,  all  four 
„   are  opposed  to  the  public,  which  wants  nothing  but  com- 
petent service  —  a  guide  to  agreeable  reading,  an  adviser 
in  selecting  gifts,  a  herald  of  new  knowledge,  a  giver  of 
intellectual  delight. 
'/t£iw        All  five  groups  are  discontented  with  the  present  condi- 
^  £rrk  tion  of  American  criticism. 

Publishers  of  books  complain  that  reviews  do  not  help 
sales.  Publishers  of  magazines  lament  that  readers  do  not 
care  for  articles  on  literary  subjects.  Publishers  of  news- 
papers frankly  doubt  the  interest  of  book-notices.  The 
critic  confesses  that  his  occupation  is  ill-considered  and 

S\S/I^"^^       .4  / 

,^^^/i^  ill-paid.    The  author  wrathfuUy  exclaims  —  but  what  he 
j  <JLc--t^*--<*-^c~--4     ^-*w     /}  &  tf  T*  0    1™*Ast/  dUi  f       -vOCJeJ  s 

\r^L 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  201 

exclaims  cannot  be  summarized,  so  various  is  it.    Thus, 

e  whole  commercial  interest  is  unsatisfied.    The  public, 
other  hand,  finds  book-reviews  of  little  service  and 
-y     -reads  them,  if  at  all,  with  indifference,  with  distrust,  or 
'4-"ith.  exasperation.    That  part  of  the  public  which  appre- 
criticism  as  an  art  maintains  an  eloquent  silence  and 
reads  French. 

Obviously,  what  frets  the  commercial  interest  is  the 
public  indifference  to  book-reviews.  What  is  the  cause  of 
that? 

In  critical  writing,  what  is  the  base  of  interest,  the  indis- 
pensable foundation  in  comparison  with  which  all  else  is 
superstructure?  I  mentioned  the  public  which,  appre- 
ciating criticism  as  an  art,  turns  from  America  to  France 
for  what  it  craves.  Our  sympathies  respond  to  the  call  of 
our  own  national  life,  and  may  not  be  satisfied  by  French- 
men; if  we  turn  to  them,  we  do  so  for  some  attraction 
which  compensates  for  the  absence  of  intimate  relation  to 
our  needs.  What  is  it?  Of  course,  French  mastery  of  form 
accounts  in  part  for  our  intellectual  absenteeism;  but  it 
does  not  account  for  it  wholly,  not,  I  think,  even  in  the 
main. 

Consider  the  two  schools  of  French  criticism  typified 
by  Brunetiere  and  by  Anatole  France.     Men  like  Brune- 
tiere  seem  to  believe  that  what  they  say  is  important,  n 
merely  to  fellow  dilettanti  or  to  fellow  scholars,  but  to  the 
public  and  to  the  mass  of  the  public;  they  seem  to  write, 
not  to  display  their  attainments,  but  to  use  their  attain- 
ments to  accomplish  their  end;  they  put  their  whole 
strength,  intellectual  and  moral,  into  their  argument;  they  AD/V^ 
seek  to  make  converts,  to  crush  enemies.     They  are  in  ^ 
earnest;  they  feel  responsible;  they  take  their  office  with 
high  seriousness.    They  seem  to  think  that  the  soul  and 
the  character  of  the  people  are  as  important  as  its  economic 

15 


202  HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

comfort.  The  problem  of  a  contemporary,  popular  au- 
thor —  even  if  contemporary,  even  if  popular  —  is  to 
them  an  important  question;  the  intellectual,  moral,  and 
aesthetic  ideals  which  he  is  spreading  through  the  country 
are  to  be  tested  rigorously,  then  applauded  or  fought. 
They  seek  to  be  clear  because  they  wish  to  interest;  they 
wish  to  interest  because  they  wish  to  convince;  they  wish 
to  convince  because  they  have  convictions  which  they 
believe  should  prevail. 

The  men  like  Anatole  France  —  if  there  are  any  others 
like  Anatole  France  —  have  a  different  philosophy  of  life. 
They  are  doubtful  of  endeavor,  doubtful  of  progress,  doubt- 
ful of  new  schools  of  art,  doubtful  of  new  solutions  whether 
in  philosophy  or  economics;  but  they  have  a  quick  sensi- 
tiveness to  beauty  and  a  profound  sympathy  with  suffer- 
i  ing  man.    Not  only  do  they  face  their  doubts,  but  they 
.    make  their  readers  face  them.    They  do  not  pretend;  they 
%   do  not  conceal;  they  flatter  no  conventions  and  no  preju- 
dices; they  are  sincere.     Giving  themselves  without  re- 
serve, they  do  not  speak  what  they  think  will  please  you, 
but  rather  try  with  all  their  art  to  please  you  with  what 
they  think. 

In  the  French  critics  of  both  types  —  the  men  like 
Brunetiere,  the  men  like  Anatole  France  —  there  is  this 
common,  this  invaluable  characteristic,  —  I  mean  intel- 
lectual candor.  That  is  their  great  attraction;  that  is  the 
foundation  of  interest. 

Intellectual  candor  does  not  mark  American  criticism. 
The  fault  is  primarily  the  publisher's.  It  lies  in  the  funda- 
mental mistake  that  he  makes  in  the  matter  of  publicity. 
Each  publisher,  that  is,  treats  each  new  book  as  if  it  were 
the  only  one  that  he  had  ever  published,  were  publishing, 
or  ever  should  publish.  He  gives  all  his  efforts  to  seeing 
that  it  is  praised.  He  repeats  these  exertions  with  some 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  203 

success  for  each  book  that  he  prints.  Meanwhile,  every 
other  publisher  is  doing  as  much  for  every  new  book  of 
his  own.  The  natural  result  follows  —  a  monotony  of 
praise  which  permits  no  books  to  stand  out,  and  which, 
however  plausible  in  the  particular  instance,  is,  in  the 
mass,  incredible. 

But  how  is  it  that  the  publisher's  fiat  produces  praise? 
The  answer  is  implicit  in  the  fact  that  criticism  is  sup- 
ported, not  by  the  public,  but  by  the  publisher.  Upon  the 
money  which  the  publisher  of  books  is  ready  to  spend  for 
advertising  depends  the  publisher  of  book-reviews;  upon 
him  in  turn  depends  the  critic. 

Between  the  publisher  of  books  anxious  for  favorable 
reviews  and  willing  to  spend  money,  and  the  publisher  of 
a  newspaper  anxious  for  advertisements  and  supporting  a 
dependent  critic,  the  chance  to  trade  is  perfect.  Nothing 
sordid  need  be  said  or,  indeed,  perceived;  all  may  be  left 
to  the  workings  of  human  nature.  Favorable  reviews  are 
printed,  advertisements  are  received;  and  no  one,  not  even/  ( ^ 
the  principals,  need  be  certain  that  the  reviews  are  not 
favorable  because  the  books  are  good,  or  that  the  adver- 
tisements are  not  given  because  the  comment  is  competent 
and  just.  Nevertheless,  the  Silent  Bargain  has  been  deco- 
rously struck.  Once  reached,  it  tends  of  itself  to  become 
ever  more  close,  intimate,  and  inclusive.  The  publisher 
of  books  is  continuously  tempted  to  push  his  advantage 
with  the  complaisant  publisher  of  a  newspaper;  the  pub- 
lisher of  a  newspaper  is  continuously  tempted  to  pitch  ever 
higher  and  still  higher  the  note  of  praise. 

But  the  Silent  Bargain  is  not  made  with  newspapers 
only.  Obviously,  critics  can  say  nothing  without  the  con- 
sent of  some  publisher;  obviously,  their  alternatives  are 
silence  or  submission.  They  who  write  for  the  magazines 
are  wooed  to  constant  surrender;  they  must,  or  they  think 


204  HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

that  they  must,  be  tender  of  all  authors  who  have  com- 
mercial relations  with  the  house  that  publishes  the  periodi- 
cal to  which  they  are  contributing.  Even  they  who  write 
books  are  not  exempt;  they  must,  or  they  feel  that  they 
must,  deal  gently  with  reputations  commercially  dear  to 
their  publisher.  If  the  critic  is  timid,  or  amiable,  or  in- 
triguing, or  struck  with  poverty,  he  is  certain,  whatever 
his  rank,  to  dodge,  to  soften,  to  omit  whatever  he  fears  may 
displease  the  publisher  on  whom  he  depends.  Selfish  con- 
siderations thus  tend  ever  to  emasculate  criticism;  criti- 
cism thus  tends  ever  to  assume  more  and  more  nearly  the 
most  dishonest  and  exasperating  form  of  advertisement, 
that  of  the  "reading  notice"  which  presents  itself  as  sin- 
cere, spontaneous  testimony.  Disingenuous  criticism  tends 
in  its  turn  to  puzzle  and  disgust  the  public  —  and  to  hurt 
the  publisher.  The  puff  is  a  boomerang. 

Its  return  blow  is  serious;  it  would  be  fatal,  could  readers 
turn  away  wholly  from  criticism.  What  saves  the  pub- 
lisher is  that  they  cannot.  They  have  continuous,  practi- 
cal need  of  books,  and  must  know  about  them.  The  mul- 
titudinous paths  of  reading  stretch  away  at  every  angle, 
and  the  traveling  crowd  must  gather  and  guess  and  wonder 
about  the  guide-post  criticism,  even  if  each  finger,  contra- 
dicting every  other,  points  to  its  own  road  as  that  "To 
Excellence." 

Wayfarers  in  like  predicament  would  question  one  an- 
other. It  is  so  with  readers.  Curiously  enough,  publishers 
declare  that  their  best  advertising  flows  from  this  private 
talk.  They  all  agree  that,  whereas  reviews  sell  nothing, 
the  gossip  of  readers  sells  much.  Curiously,  I  say;  for  this 
gossip  is  not  under  their  control;  it  is  as  often  adverse  as 
favorable;  it  kills  as  much  as  it  sells.  Moreover,  when  it 
kills,  it  kills  in  secret;  it  leaves  the  bewildered  publisher 
without  a  clue  to  the  culprit  or  his  motive.  How,  then, 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  205 

can  it  be  superior  to  the  controlled,  considerate  flattery  of 
the  public  press?  It  is  odd  that  publishers  never  seriously 
ask  themselves  this  question,  for  the  answer,  if  I  have  it, 
is  instructive.  The  dictum  of  the  schoolgirl  that  a  novel 
is  "perfectly  lovely"  or  "perfectly  horrid,"  comes  from 
the  heart.  The  comment  of  society  women  at  afternoon 
tea,  the  talk  of  business  men  at  the  club,  if  seldom  of  much 
critical  value,  is  sincere.  In  circles  in  which  literature  is 
loved,  the  witty  things  which  clever  men  and  clever 
women  say  about  books  are  inspired  by  the  fear  neither 
of  God  nor  of  man.  In  circles  falsely  literary,  parrot  talk 
and  affectation  hold  sway,  but  the  talkers  have  an  absurd 
faith  in  one  another.  In  short,  all  private  talk  about  books 
bears  the  stamp  of  sincerity.  That  is  what  makes  the 
power  of  the  spoken  word.  It  is  still  more  potent  when  it 
takes  the  form,  not  of  casual  mention,  but  of  real  discus- 
sion. When  opinions  differ,  talk  becomes  animated,  warm, 
continuous.  Listeners  are  turned  into  partisans.  A  lively, 
unfettered  dispute  over  a  book  by  witty  men,  no  matter 
how  prejudiced,  or  by  clever  women,  no  matter  how  un- 
learned, does  not  leave  the  listener  indifferent.  He  is 
tempted  to  read  that  book. 

Now,  what  the  publisher  needs  in  order  to  print  with 
financial  profit  the  best  work  and  much  work,  is  the  crea- 
tion of  a  wide  general  interest  in  literature.  This  vastly 
transcends  in  importance  the  fate  of  any  one  book  or  group 
of  books.  Instead,  then,  of  trying  to  start  in  the  public 
press  a  chorus  of  stupid  praise,  why  should  he  not  endeavor 
to  obtain  a  reproduction  of  what  he  acknowledges  that  his 
experience  has  taught  him  is  his  main  prop  and  support  — 
the  frank  word,  the  unfettered  dispute  of  private  talk? 
Let  him  remember  what  has  happened  when  the  vivacity 
of  public  opinion  has  forced  this  reproduction.  It  is  his- 
tory that  those  works  have  been  best  advertised  over  which 


206  HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

critics  have  fought  —  Hugo's  dramas,  Wagner's  music, 
Whitman's  poems,  Zola's  novels,  Mrs.  Stowe's  Uncle  Tom. 

Does  it  not  all  suggest  the  folly  of  the  Silent  Bargain? 

I  have  spoken  always  of  tendencies.  Public  criticism 
never  has  been  and  never  will  be  wholly  dishonest,  even 
when  in  the  toils  of  the  Silent  Bargain;  it  never  has  been 
and  never  will  be  wholly  honest,  even  with  that  cuttlefish 
removed.  But  if  beyond  cavil  it  tended  towards  sincerity, 
the  improvement  would  be  large.  In  the  measure  of  that 
tendency  it  would  gain  the  public  confidence  without  which 
it  can  benefit  no  one  —  not  even  the  publisher.  For  his 
own  sake  he  should  do  what  he  can  to  make  the  public 
regard  the  critic,  not  as  a  mere  megaphone  for  his  adver- 
tisements, but  as  an  honest  man  who  speaks  his  honest 
mind.  To  this  end,  he  should  deny  his  foolish  taste  for 
praise,  and,  even  to  the  hurt  of  individual  ventures,  use 
his  influence  to  foster  independence  in  the  critic. 

In  the  way  of  negative  help,  he  should  cease  to  tempt 
lazy  and  indifferent  reviewers  with  ready-made  notices, 
the  perfunctory  and  insincere  work  of  some  minor  em- 
ployee; he  should  stop  sending  out,  as  "literary"  notes, 
thinly  disguised  advertisements  and  irrelevant  personali- 
ties; he  should  no  longer  supply  photographs  of  his  authors 
in  affected  poses  that  display  their  vanity  much  and  their 
talent  not  at  all.  That  vulgarity  he  should  leave  to  those 
who  have  soubrettes  to  exploit;  he  should  not  treat  his 
authors  as  if  they  were  variety  artists  —  unless,  indeed, 
they  are  just  that,  and  he  himself  on  the  level  of  the  mana- 
ger of  a  low  vaudeville  house.  These  cheap  devices  lower 
his  dignity  as  a  publisher,  they  are  a  positive  hurt  to  the 
reputation  of  his  authors,  they  make  less  valuable  to  him 
the  periodical  that  prints  them,  and  they  are  an  irritation 
and  an  insult  to  the  critic,  for,  one  and  all,  they  are  at- 
tempts to  insinuate  advertising  into  his  honest  columns. 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  207 

Frankly,  they  are  modes  of  corruption,  and  degrade  the 
whole  business  of  writing. 

In  the  way  of  positive  help,  he  should  relieve  of  every 
commercial  preoccupation,  not  only  the  editors  and  con- 
tributors of  any  magazines  that  he  may  control,  but  also 
those  authors  of  criticism  and  critical  biography  whose 
volumes  he  may  print.  Having  cleaned  his  own  house,  he 
should  steadily  demand  of  the  publications  in  which  he 
advertises,  a  higher  grade  of  critical  writing,  and  should 
select  the  periodicals  to  which  to  send  his  books  for  notice, 
not  according  to  the  partiality,  but  according  to  the 
ability  of  their  reviews.  Thus  he  would  do  much  to  make 
others  follow  his  own  good  example. 


ii 

What  of  the  author?  In  respect  of  criticism,  the  pub- 
lisher, of  course,  has  no  absolute  rights,  not  even  that  of 
having  his  books  noticed  at  all.  His  interests  only  have 
been  in  question,  and,  in  the  long  run  and  in  the  mass, 
these  will  not  be  harmed,  but  benefited,  by  criticism 
honestly  adverse.  He  has  in  his  writers  a  hundred  talents, 
and  if  his  selection  is  shrewd  most  of  them  bring  profit. 
Frank  criticism  will  but  help  the  task  of  judicious  culling. 
But  all  that  has  been  said  assumes  the  cheerful  sacrifice  of 
the  particular  author  who  must  stake  his  all  upon  his 
single  talent.  Does  his  comparative  helplessness  give  him 
any  right  to  tender  treatment? 

It  does  not;  in  respect  of  rights  his,  precisely,  is  the 
predicament  of  the  publisher.  If  an  author  puts  forth  a 
book  for  sale,  he  obviously  can  be  accorded  no  privilege 
incompatible  with  the  right  of  the  public  to  know  its  value. 
He  cannot  ask  to  have  the  public  fooled  for  his  benefit;  he 
cannot  ask  to  have  his  feelings  saved,  if  to  save  them  the 


208  HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

critic  must  neglect  to  inform  his  readers.  That  is  rudi- 
mentary. Nor  may  the  author  argue  more  subtly  that, 
until  criticism  is  a  science  and  truth  unmistakable,  he 
should  be  given  the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  This  was  the 
proposition  behind  the  plea,  strongly  urged  not  so  long  ago, 
that  all  criticism  should  be  "sympathetic";  that  is,  that 
the  particular  critic  is  qualified  to  judge  those  writers  only 
whom,  on  the  whole,  he  likes.  Love,  it  was  declared,  is  the 
only  key  to  understanding.  The  obvious  value  of  the 
theory  to  the  Silent  Bargain  accounts  for  its  popularity 
with  the  commercial  interests.  Now,  no  one  can  quarrel 
with  the  criticism  of  appreciation  —  it  is  full  of  charm  and 
service;  but  to  pretend  that  it  should  be  the  only  criticism 
is  impertinent  and  vain.  To  detect  the  frivolity  of  such  a 
pretension,  one  has  only  to  apply  it  to  public  affairs; 
imagine  a  political  campaign  in  which  the  candidates  were 
criticised  only  by  their  friends!  No;  the  critic  should 
attack  whatever  he  thinks  is  bad,  and  he  is  quite  as  likely 
to  be  right  when  he  does  so  as  when  he  applauds  what  he 
thinks  is  good.  In  a  task  wherein  the  interest  of  the  public 
is  the  one  that  every  time  and  all  the  time  should  be  served, 
mercy  to  the  author  is  practically  always  a  betrayal.  To 
the  public,  neither  the  vanity  nor  the  purse  of  the  author 
is  of  the  slightest  consequence.  Indeed,  a  criticism  power- 
ful enough  to  curb  the  conceit  of  some  authors,  and  to 
make  writing  wholly  unprofitable  to  others,  would  be  an 
advantage  to  the  public,  to  really  meritorious  authors,  and 
to  the  publisher. 

And  the  publisher  —  to  consider  his  interests  again  for 
a  moment  —  would  gain  not  merely  by  the  suppression  of 
useless,  but  by  the  discipline  of  spoiled,  writers.  For  the 
Silent  Bargain  so  works  as  to  give  to  many  an  author  an 
exaggerated  idea  of  his  importance.  It  leads  the  publisher 
himself  —  what  with  his  complaisant  reviewers,  his  literary 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  209 

notes,  his  personal  paragraphs,  his  widely  distributed 
photographs  —  to  do  all  that  he  can  to  turn  the  author's 
head.  Sometimes  he  succeeds.  When  the  spoiled  writer, 
taking  all  this  au  grand  sirieux,  asks  why  sales  are  not 
larger,  then  how  hard  is  the  publisher  pressed  for  an  an- 
swer !  If  the  author  chooses  to  believe,  not  the  private  but 
the  public  statement  of  his  merit,  and  bases  upon  it  either 
a  criticism  of  his  publisher's  energy  or  a  demand  for  further 
publishing  favors,  —  increase  of  advertising,  higher  royal- 
ties, what  not,  —  the  publisher  is  in  a  ridiculous  and  rather 
troublesome  quandary.  None  but  the  initiated  know  what 
he  has  occasionally  to  endure  from  the  arrogance  of  certain 
writers.  Here  fearless  criticism  should  help  him  much. 

But  if  the  conceit  of  some  authors  offends,  the  sensitive- 
ness of  others  awakens  sympathy.  The  author  does  his 
work  in  solitude;  his  material  is  his  own  soul;  his  anxiety 
about  a  commercial  venture  is  complicated  with  the  appre- 
hension of  the  recluse  who  comes  forth  into  the  market- 
place with  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve.  Instinctively  he 
knows  that,  as  his  book  is  himself,  or  at  least  a  fragment 
of  himself,  criticism  of  it  is  truly  criticism  of  him,  not  of 
his  intellectual  ability  merely,  but  of  his  essential  charac- 
ter, his  real  value  as  a  man.  Let  no  one  laugh  until  he  has 
heard  and  survived  the  most  intimate,  the  least  friendly 
comment  upon  his  own  gifts  and  traits,  made  in  public  for 
the  delectation  of  his  friends  and  acquaintances  and  of  the 
world  at  large.  Forgivably  enough,  the  author  is  of  all 
persons  the  one  most  likely  to  be  unjust  to  critics  and  to 
criticism.  In  all  ages  he  has  made  bitter  counter-charges, 
and  flayed  the  critics  as  they  have  flayed  him.  His  prin- 
cipal complaints  are  three:  first,  that  all  critics  are  dis- 
appointed authors;  second,  that  many  are  young  and  in- 
competent, or  simply  incompetent;  third,  that  they  do  not 
agree.  Let  us  consider  them  in  turn. 


J 


210  HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

Although  various  critics  write  with  success  other  things 
than  criticism,  the  first  complaint  is  based,  I  believe,  upon 

.what  is  generally  a  fact.  It  carries  two  implications:  the 
first,  that  one  cannot  competently  judge  a  task  which  he 

:  is  unable  to  perform  himself;  the  second,  that  the  disap- 
pointed author  is  blinded  by  jealousy.  As  to  the  first,  no 
writer  ever  refrained  out  of  deference  to  it  from  criticising, 
or  even  discharging,  his  cook.  As  to  the  second,  jealousy 
does  not  always  blind:  sometimes  it  gives  keenness  of  vi- 
sion. The  disappointed  author  turned  critic  may  indeed 
be  incompetent;  but,  if  he  is  so,  it  is  for  reasons  that  his 
disappointment  does  not  supply.  If  he  is  able,  his  disap- 
pointment will,  on  the  contrary,  help  his  criticism.  He 
will  have  a  wholesome  contempt  for  facile  success;  he  will 
measure  by  exacting  standards.  Moreover,  the  thoughts 
of  a  talented  man  about  an  art  for  the  attainment  of  which 
he  has  striven  to  the  point  of  despair  are  certain  to  be 
valuable;  his  study  of  the  masters  has  been  intense;  his 
study  of  his  contemporaries  has  had  the  keenness  of  an 
ambitious  search  for  the  key  to  success.  His  criticism, 
even  if  saturated  with  envy,  will  have  value.  In  spite  of 
all  that  partisans  of  sympathetic  criticism  may  say,  hatred 
and  malice  may  give  as  much  insight  into  character  as 
love.  Sainte-Beuve  was  a  disappointed  author,  jealous  of 
the  success  of  others. 

iBut  ability  is  necessary.  Envy  and  malice,  not  rein- 
forced by  talent,  can  win  themselves  small  satisfaction, 
and  do  no  more  than  transient  harm;  for  then  they  work 
at  random  and  make  wild  and  senseless  charges.  To  be 
dangerous  to  the  author,  to  be  valuable  to  the  public,  to 
give  pleasure  to  their  possessor,  they  must  be  backed  by 

Iacuteness  to  perceive  and  judgment  to  proclaim  real  flaws 
only.  The  disappointed  critic  of  ability  knows  that  the 
truth  is  what  stings,  and  if  he  seeks  disagreeable  truth,  at 


n: 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  211 

least  he  seeks  truth.  He  knows  also  that  continual  vitu- 
peration is  as  dull  as  continual  praise;  if  only  to  give  relief 
to  his  censure,  he  will  note  what  is  good.  He  will  mix 
honey  with  the  gall.  So  long  as  he  speaks  truth,  he  does 
a  useful  work,  and  his  motives  are  of  no  consequence  to 
any  one  but  himself.  Even  if  he  speaks  it  with  unneces- 
sary roughness,  the  author  cannot  legitimately  complain. 
Did  he  suppose  that  he  was  sending  his  book  into  a  world 
of  gentlemen  only?  Truth  is  truth,  and  a  boor  may  have 
it.  That  the  standard  of  courtesy  is  sometimes  hard  to/ 1  •  "* 
square  with  that  of  perfect  sincerity  is  the  dilemma  of  the'*^ 
critic;  but  the  author  can  quarrel  with  the  fact  no  more 
than  with  the  circumstance  that  in  a  noisy  world  he  can 
write  best  where  there  is  quiet.  If  he  suffers,  let  him  sift 
criticism  through  his  family;  consoling  himself,  mean- 
while, with  the  reflection  that  there  is  criticism  of  criticism, 
and  that  any  important  critic  will  ultimately  know  his 
pains.  Leslie  Stephen  was  so  sensitive  that  he  rarely  read 
reviews  of  his  critical  writings.  After  all,  the  critic  is  also 
an  author. 

The  second  complaint  of  writers,  that  criticism  is  largely 
young  and  incompetent,  —  or  merely  incompetent,  —  is 
well  founded.  The  reason  lies  in  the  general  preference  of 
publishers  for  criticism  that  is  laudatory  even  if  absurd. 
Again  we  meet  the  Silent  Bargain.  The  commercial  pub- 
lisher of  book-reviews,  realizing  that  any  fool  can  praise  a 
book,  is  apt  to  increase  his  profits  by  lowering  the  wage  of 
his  critic.  At  its  extreme  point,  his  thrift  requires  a  re- 
viewer of  small  brains  and  less  moral  courage;  such  a  man 
costs  less  and  is  unlikely  ever  to  speak  with  offensive  frank- 
ness. Thus  it  happens  that,  commonly  in  the  newspapers 
and  frequently  in  periodicals  of  some  literary  pretension, 
the  writers  of  reviews  are  shiftless  literary  hacks,  shallow, 


212  HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

sentimental  women,  or  crude  young  persons  full  of  indis- 
criminate enthusiasm  for  all  printed  matter. 

I  spoke  of  the  magazines.  When  their  editors  say  that 
literary  papers  are  not  popular,  do  they  consider  what 
writers  they  admit  to  the  work,  with  what  payment  they 
tempt  the  really  competent,  what  limitations  they  impose 
upon  sincerity?  Do  they  not  really  mean  that  the  amiable 
in  manner  or  the  remote  in  subject,  which  alone  they  con- 
sider expedient,  is  not  popular?  Do  they  really  believe 
that  a  brilliant  writer,  neither  a  dilettante  nor  a  German- 
ized scholar,  uttering  with  fire  and  conviction  his  full  be- 
lief, would  not  interest  the  public?  Do  they  doubt  that 
such  a  writer  could  be  found,  if  sought  ?  The  reviews  which 
they  do  print  are  not  popular;  but  that  proves  nothing  in 
respect  of  better  reviews.  Whatever  the  apparent  limita- 
tions of  criticism,  it  actually  takes  the  universe  for  its 
province.  In  subject  it  is  as  protean  as  life  itself;  in  man- 
ner it  may  be  what  you  will.  To  say,  then,  that  neither 
American  writers  nor  American  readers  can  be  found  for  it 
is  to  accuse  the  nation  of  a  poverty  of  intellect  so  great  as 
to  be  incredible.  No;  commercial  timidity,  aiming  always 
;to  produce  a  magazine  so  inoffensive  as  to  insinuate  itself 
Unto  universal  tolerance,  is  the  fundamental  cause  of  the 
i  Wpopularity  of  the  average  critical  article;  how  can  the 
t  public  fail  to  be  indifferent  to  what  lacks  life,  apposite- 
ness  to  daily  needs,  conviction,  intellectual  and  moral  can- 
dor? At  least  one  reason  why  we  have  no  Brunetiere  is 
that  there  is  almost  no  periodical  in  which  such  a  man  may 
write. 

i      In  the  actual,  not  the  possible,  writers  of  our  criticism 

there  is,  in  the  lower  ranks,  a  lack  of  skill,  of  seriousness, 

I  of  reasonable  competence,  and  a  cynical  acceptance  of  the 

\  dishonest  r61e  they  are  expected  to  play;  in  the  higher 

ranks,  there  is  a  lack  of  any  vital  message,  a  desire  rather 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  213 

to  win,  without  offending  the  publisher,  the  approval  of 
the  ultra-literary  and  the  scholarly,  than  really  to  reach 
and  teach  the  public.  It  is  this  degradation,  this  lack  of 
earnestness,  and  not  lack  of  inherent  interest  in  the  gen- 
eral topic,  which  makes  our  critical  work  unpopular,  and 
deprives  the  whole  literary  industry  of  that  quickening  and 
increase  of  public  interest  from  which  alone  can  spring  a 
vigorous  and  healthy  growth.  This  feebleness  will  begin 
to  vanish  the  moment  that  the  publishers  of  books,  who 
support  criticism,  say  peremptorily  that  reviews  that  in- 
terest, not  reviews  that  puff,  are  what  they  want.  When 
they  say  this,  that  is  the  kind  of  reviews  they  will  get.  If 
that  criticism  indeed  prove  interesting,  it  will  then  be 
printed  up  to  the  value  of  the  buying  power  of  the  public, 
and  it  will  be  supported  where  it  should  be  —  not  by  the 
publisher  but  by  the  people.  It  is  said  in  excuse  that,  as 
a  city  has  the  government,  so  the  public  has  the  criticism, 
which  it  deserves.  That  is  debatable;  but,  even  so,  to 
whose  interest  is  it  that  the  taste  of  the  public  should  be 
improved?  Honest  criticism  addressed  to  the  public,  by 
writers  who  study  how  to  interest  it  rather  than  how  to 
flatter  the  producers  of  books,  would  educate.  The  educa- 
tion of  readers,  always  the  soundest  investment  of  the  pub- 
lisher, can  never  be  given  by  servile  reviewers  feebly  echo- 
ing his  own  interested  advertisements.  They  are  of  no 
value  —  to  the  public,  the  publisher,  or  the  author. 

The  publisher  of  a  newspaper  of  which  reviews  are  an 
incident  need  not,  however,  wait  for  the  signal.  If,  acting 
on  the  assumption  that  his  duty  is,  not  to  the  publisher  but 
to  the  public,  he  will  summon  competent  and  earnest  re- 
viewers to  speak  the  truth  as  they  see  it,  he  will  infallibly 
increase  the  vivacity  and  interest  of  his  articles  and  the 
pleasure  and  confidence  of  his  readers.  He  will  not  have 
any  permanent  loss  of  advertising.  Whenever  he  estab- 


214  HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

lishes  his  periodical  as  one  read  by  lovers  of  literature,  he 
has  the  publishers  at  his  mercy.  But  suppose  that  his 
advertising  decreases?  Let  him  not  make  the  common 
mistake  of  measuring  the  value  of  a  department  by  the 
amount  of  related  advertising  that  it  attracts.  The  gen- 
eral excellence  of  his  paper  as  an  advertising  medium  — 
supposing  he  has  no  aim  beyond  profit  —  is  what  he  should 
seek.  The  public  which  reads  and  enjoys  books  is  worth 
attracting,  even  if  the  publisher  does  not  follow,  for  it  buys 
other  things  than  books. 

If,  however,  his  newspaper  is  not  one  that  can  please 
people  of  literary  tastes,  he  will  get  book-advertising  only 
in  negligible  quantities  no  matter  how  much  he  may  praise 
the  volumes  sent  him.  Of  what  use  are  puffs  which  fall 
not  under  the  right  eyes? 

If,  again,  his  periodical  seems  an  exception  to  this  rea- 
soning, and  his  puffery  appears  to  bring  him  profit,  let  him 
consider  the  parts  of  it  unrelated  to  literature;  he  will  find 
there  matter  which  pleases  readers  of  intelligence,  and  he 
may  be  sure  that  this,  quite  as  much  as  his  praise,  is  what 
brings  the  publishers'  advertisements;  he  may  be  sure  that, 
should  he  substitute  sincere  criticism,  the  advertisements 
would  increase. 

in 

The  third  complaint  of  the  author  —  from  whom  I  have 
wandered  —  is  that  critics  do  not  agree.  To  argue  that 
whenever  two  critics  hold  different  opinions,  the  criticism 
of  one  of  them  must  be  valueless,  is  absurd.  The  immedi- 
ate question  is,  valueless  to  whom  —  to  the  public  or  to 
the  author? 

If  the  author  is  meant,  the  argument  assumes  that  criti- 
cism is  written  for  the  instruction  of  the  author,  which  is 
not  true.  Grammar  and  facts  a  critic  can  indeed  correct; 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  215 

but  he  never  expects  to  change  an  author's  style  or  make 
his  talent  other  than  it  is.  Though  he  may  lash  the  man, 
he  does  not  hope  to  reform  him.  However  slightly  ac-j 
quainted  with  psychology,  the  critic  knows  that  a  mature 
writer  does  not  change  and  cannot  change;  his  character 
is  made,  his  gifts,  such  as  they  are,  are  what  they  are.  On 
the  contrary,  the  critic  writes  to  influence  the  public  —  to 
inform  the  old,  to  train  the  young.  He  knows  that  his 
chief  chance  is  with  plastic  youth;  he  hopes  to  form  the 
future  writer;  still  more  he  hopes  to  form  the  future  reader. 
He  knows  that  the  effect  of  good  reviewing  stops  not  with 
the  books  reviewed,  but  influences  the  reader's  choice 
among  thousands  of  volumes  as  yet  undreamed  of  by  any 
publisher. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  public  is  meant,  the  argument 
assumes  that  one  man's  meat  is  not  another  man's  poison. 
The  bird  prefers  seed,  and  the  dog  a  bone,  and  there  is  no 
standard  animal  food.  Nor,  likewise,  is  there  any  standard 
intellectual  food:  both  critics,  however  they  disagree,  may 
be  right. 

No  author,  no  publisher,  should  think  that  variety  in- 
validates criticism.  If  there  is  any  certainty  about  critics, 
it  is  that  they  will  not  think  alike.  The  sum  of  x  (a  certain 
book)  plus  y  (a  certain  critic)  can  never  be  the  same  as  x 
(the  same  book)  plus  z  (a  different  critic).  A  given  book 
cannot  affect  a  man  of  a  particular  ability,  temperament, 
training,  as  it  affects  one  of  a  different  ability,  tempera- 
ment, and  training.  A  book  is  never  complete  without  a 
reader,  and  the  value  of  the  combination  is  all  that  can  be 
found  out.  For  the  value  of  a  book  is  varying:  it  varies 
with  the  period,  with  the  nationality,  with  the  character  of 
the  reader.  Shakespeare  had  one  value  for  the  Eliza- 
bethans; he  has  a  different  value  for  us,  and  still  another 
for  the  Frenchman;  he  has  a  special  value  for  the  play- 


216 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 


goer,  and  a  special  value  for  the  student  in  his  closet.  In 
respect  of  literary  art,  pragmatism  is  right:  there  is  no 
truth,  there  are  truths.  About  all  vital  writing  there  is  a 
new  truth  born  with  each  new  reader.  Therein  lies  the 
unending  fascination  of  books,  the  temptation  to  infinite 
discussion.  To  awaken  an  immortal  curiosity  is  the  glory 
of  genius. 

From  all  this  it  follows  that  critics  are  representative; 
each  one  stands  for  a  group  of  people  whose  spokesman  he 
has  become,  because  he  has,  on  the  whole,  their  training, 
birth  from  their  class,  the  prejudices  of  their  community 
and  of  their  special  group  in  that  community,  and  there- 
fore expresses  their  ideals.  Once  let  publisher  and  author 
grasp  this  idea,  and  criticism,  however  divergent,  will  come 
to  have  a  vital  meaning  for  them.  The  publisher  can  learn 
from  the  judgment  of  the  critic  what  the  judgment  of  his 
group  in  the  community  is  likely  to  be,  and  from  a  succes- 
sion of  such  judgments  through  a  term  of  years,  he  can 
gam  valuable  information  as  to  the  needs,  the  tastes,  the 
ideals  of  the  public,  or  of  the  group  of  publics,  which  he 
may  wish  to  serve.  Accurate  information  straight  from 
writers  serving  the  public  —  that,  I  cannot  too  often  re- 
peat, is  worth  more  to  him  than  any  amount  of  obsequious 
praise.  That  precisely  is  what  he  cannot  get  until  all 
critics  are  what  they  should  be  —  lawyers  whose  only 
clients  are  their  own  convictions. 

The  author  also  gains.  Although  he  is  always  liable  to 
the  disappointment  of  finding  that  his  book  has  failed  to 
accomplish  his  aim,  he  nevertheless  can  draw  the  sting  from 
much  adverse  criticism  if  he  will  regard,  not  its  face  value, 
but  its  representative  value.  He  is  writing  for  a  certain 
audience;  the  criticism  of  that  audience  only,  then,  need 
count.  If  he  has  his  own  public  with  him,  he  is  as  safe  as 
a  man  on  an  island  viewing  a  storm  at  sea,  no  matter  how 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  217 

critics  representing  other  publics  may  rage.  Not  all  the 
adverse  comment  in  this  country  on  E.  P.  Roe,  in  Eng- 
land on  Ouida,  in  France  on  Georges  Ohnet  ever  cost  them 
a  single  reader.  Their  audience  heard  it  not;  it  did  not 
count.  There  is,  of  course,  a  difference  of  value  in  publics, 
and  if  these  writers  had  a  tragedy,  it  lay  in  their  not  win- 
ning the  audience  of  their  choice.  But  this  does  not  dis- 
turb the  statement  as  to  the  vanity  of  adverse  criticism 
for  an  author  who  hears  objurgations  from  people  whom 
he  did  not  seek  to  please.  Sometimes,  indeed,  such  objur- 
gations flatter.  If,  for  example,  the  author  has  written  a 
novel  which  is  in  effect  an  attempt  to  batter  down  ancient 
prejudice,  nothing  should  please  him  more  than  to  hear  the 
angry  protests  of  the  conservative  —  they  may  be  the 
shrieks  of  the  dying,  as  was  the  case,  for  instance,  when 
Dr.  Holmes  wrote  the  Autocrat;  they  show,  at  any  rate, 
that  the  book  has  hit. 

Now,  each  in  its  degree,  every  work  of  art  is  controver- 
sial and  cannot  help  being  so  until  men  are  turned  out,  like 
lead  soldiers,  from  a  common  mould.  Every  novel,  for 
example,  even  when  not  written  "with  a  purpose,"  has 
many  theories  behind  it  —  a  theory  as  to  its  proper  con- 
struction, a  theory  as  to  its  proper  content,  a  theory  of  life. 
Every  one  is  a  legitimate  object  of  attack,  and  in  public  or 
private  is  certain  to  be  attacked.  Does  the  author  prefer 
to  be  fought  in  the  open  or  stabbed  in  the  dark?  —  that  is 
really  his  only  choice.  The  author  of  a  novel,  a  poem,  an 
essay,  or  a  play  should  think  of  it  as  a  new  idea,  or  a  new 
embodiment  of  an  idea,  which  is  bound  to  hurtle  against 
others  dear  to  their  possessors.  He  should  remember  that 
a  book  that  arouses  no  discussion  is  a  poor,  dead  thing. 
Let  him  cultivate  the  power  of  analysis,  and  seek  from  his 
critics,  not  praise,  but  knowledge  of  what,  precisely,  he 
has  done.  If  he  has  sought  to  please,  he  can  learn  what 

16 


218  HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

social  groups  he  has  charmed,  what  groups  he  has  failed 
to  interest,  and  why,  and  may  make  a  new  effort  with  a 
better  chance  of  success.  If  he  has  sought  to  prevail,  he 
can  learn  whether  his  blows  have  told,  and,  what  is  more 
important,  upon  whom.  In  either  case,  to  know  the  nature 
of  his  general  task,  he  must  learn  three  things:  whom  his 
book  has  affected,  how  much  it  has  affected  them,  and  in 
what  way  it  has  affected  them.  Only  through  honest, 
widespread,  really  representative  criticism,  can  the  author 
know  these  things. 

Whatever  their  individual  hurts,  the  publisher  of  books, 
the  publisher  of  book-reviews,  and  the  author  should  recog- 
nize that  the  entire  sincerity  of  criticism,  which  is  the  con- 
dition of  its  value  to  the  public,  is  also  the  condition  of  its 
value  to  them.  It  is  a  friend  whose  wounds  are  faithful. 
The  lesson  that  they  must  learn  is  this:  an  honest  man 
giving  an  honest  opinion  is  a  respectable  person,  and  if  he 
has  any  literary  gift  at  all,  a  forcible  writer.  What  he  says 
is  read,  and,  what  is  more,  it  is  trusted.  If  he  has  cultiva- 
tion enough  to  maintain  himself  as  a  critic,  —  as  many  of 
those  now  writing  have  not,  once  servility  ceases  to  be  a 
merit,  —  he  acquires  a  following  upon  whom  his  influence 
is  deep  and  real,  and  upon  whom,  in  the  measure  of  his 
capacity,  he  exerts  an  educational  force.  If  to  honesty  he 
adds  real  scholarship,  sound  taste,  and  vivacity  as  a  writer, 
he  becomes  a  leading  critic,  and  his  influence  for  good  is 
proportionally  enlarged.  If  there  were  honest  critics  with 
ability  enough  to  satisfy  the  particular  readers  they  served 
in  every  periodical  now  printing  literary  criticism,  public 
interest  in  reviews,  and  consequently  in  books,  would 
greatly  increase.  And  public  interest  and  confidence  once 
won,  the  standing,  and  with  it  the  profit,  of  the  four  groups 
commercially  interested  in  literature  would  infallibly  rise. 
This  is  the  condition  which  all  four  should  work  to  create. 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  219 

Would  it  arrive  if  the  publisher  of  books  should  repudiate 
the  Silent  Bargain?  If  he  should  send  with  the  book  for 
review,  not  the  usual  ready-made  puff,  but  a  card  request- 
ing only  the  favor  of  a  sincere  opinion;  if,  furthermore,  he 
showed  his  good  faith  by  placing  his  advertisements  where 
the  quality  of  the  reviewing  was  best,  would  the  critical 
millennium  come?  It  would  not.  I  have  made  the  con- 
venient assumption  that  the  critic  needs  only  permission 
to  be  sincere.  Inevitable  victim  of  the  Silent  Bargain  he 
may  be,  but  he  is  human  and  will  not  be  good  simply 
because  he  has  the  chance.  But  he  would  be  better  than 
he  is  —  if  for  no  other  reason  than  because  many  of  his 
temptations  would  be  removed.  The  new  conditions  would 
at  once  and  automatically  change  the  direction  of  his  per- 
sonal interests.  He  and  his  publisher  would  need  to  inter- 
est the  public.  Public  service  would  be  the  condition  of 
his  continuing  critic  at  all.  He  would  become  the  agent, 
not  of  the  publisher  to  the  public,  but  of  the  public  to  the 
publisher.  And  although  then,  as  now  in  criticism  of 
political  affairs,  insincere  men  would  sacrifice  their  stand- 
ards to  their  popularity,  they  would  still  reflect  public 
opinion.  To  know  what  really  is  popular  opinion  is  the 
first  step  toward  making  it  better.  Accurately  to  know  it 
is  of  the  first  commercial  importance  for  publisher  and 
author,  of  the  first  public  importance  for  the  effective 
leaders  of  public  opinion. 

This  new  goal  of  criticism  —  the  desire  to  attract  the 
public  —  would  have  other  advantages.  It  would  diminish 
the  amount  of  criticism.  One  of  the  worst  effects  of  the 
Silent  Bargain  is  the  obligation  of  the  reviewer  to  notice 
every  book  that  is  sent  him  —  not  because  it  interests  him, 
not  because  it  will  interest  his  public,  but  to  satisfy  the 
publisher.  Thus  it  happens  that  many  a  newspaper  spreads 
before  its  readers  scores  upon  scores  of  perfunctory  reviews 


220  HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

in  which  are  hopelessly  concealed  those  few  written  with 
pleasure,  those  few  which  would  be  welcome  to  its  public. 
Tired  by  the  mere  sight,  readers  turn  hopelessly  away. 
Now,  many  books  lack  interest  for  any  one;  of  those  that 
remain,  many  lack  interest  for  readers  of  a  particular  pub- 
lication. Suppose  a  reviewer,  preoccupied,  not  with  the 
publisher,  but  with  his  own  public,  confronted  by  the  an- 
nual mass  of  books :  ask  yourself  what  he  would  naturally 
do.  He  would  notice,  would  he  not,  those  books  only  in 
which  he  thought  that  he  could  interest  his  readers?  He 
would  warn  his  public  against  books  which  would  disap- 
point them;  he  would  take  pleasure  in  praising  books  which 
would  please  them.  The  glow  of  personal  interest  would 
be  in  what  he  wrote,  and,  partly  for  this  reason,  partly 
because  the  reviews  would  be  few,  his  public  would  read 
them.  Herein,  again,  the  publisher  would  gain ;  conspicu- 
ous notices  of  the  right  books  would  go  to  the  right  people. 
An  automatic  sifting  and  sorting  of  his  publications,  like 
that  done  by  the  machines  which  grade  fruit,  sending  each 
size  into  its  appropriate  pocket,  would  take  place. 

But  the  greatest  gain  to  criticism  remains  to  be  pointed 
out.  The  critics  who  have  chosen  silence,  rather  than  sub- 
mission to  the  Silent  Bargain,  would  have  a  chance  to 
write.  They  are  the  best  critics,  and  when  they  resume  the 
pen,  the  whole  industry  of  writing  will  gain. 


IV 

But  the  critic,  though  liberated,  has  many  hard  ques- 
tions to  decide,  many  subtle  temptations  to  resist.  There 
is  the  question  of  his  motives,  which  I  said  are  of  no  con- 
sequence to  the  author  or  to  the  public  so  long  as  what  he 
speaks  is  truth;  but  which,  I  must  now  add,  are  of  great 
consequence  to  him.  If  he  feels  envy  and  malice,  he  must 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  221 

not  cherish  them  as  passions  to  be  gratified,  but  use  them, 
if  at  all,  as  dangerous  tools.  He  must  be  sure  that  his  ruling 
passion  is  love  of  good  work  —  a  love  strong  enough  to 
make  him  proclaim  it,  though  done  by  his  worst  enemy. 
There  is  the  question  again  of  his  own  limitations ;  he  must 
be  on  his  guard  lest  they  lead  him  into  injustice,  and  yet 
never  so  timid  that  he  fails  to  say  what  he  thinks,  for  fear 
it  may  be  wrong. 

I  speak  of  these  things  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
critic's  duty  to  himself;  but  they  are  a  part  also  of  his  duty 
towards  his  neighbor,  the  author.  What  that  duty  may 
precisely  be,  is  his  most  difficult  problem.  A  few  things 
only  are  plain.  He  ought  to  say  as  much  against  a  friend 
as  against  an  enemy,  as  much  against  a  publisher  whom 
he  knows  as  against  a  publisher  of  England  or  France.  He 
must  dare  to  give  pain.  He  must  make  his  own  the  ideals 
of  Sarcey.  "I  love  the  theatre,"  he  wrote  to  Zola,  "with 
so  absolute  a  devotion  that  I  sacrifice  everything,  even  my 
particular  friends,  even,  what  is  much  more  difficult,  my 
particular  enemies,  to  the  pleasure  of  pushing  the  public 
towards  the  play  which  I  consider  good,  and  of  keeping  it 
away  from  the  play  which  I  consider  bad." 

That  perhaps  was  comparatively  easy  for  Sarcey  with 
his  clear  ideal  of  the  well-made  piece;  it  is  perhaps  easy  in 
the  simple,  straightforward  appraisal  of  the  ordinary  book; 
but  the  critic  may  be  excused  if  he  feels  compunctions  and 
timidities  when  the  task  grows  more  complex,  when,  arm- 
ing himself  more  and  more  with  the  weapons  of  psychology, 
he  seeks  his  explanations  of  a  given  work  where  undoubt- 
edly they  lie,  in  the  circumstances,  the  passions,  the  brains, 
the  very  disorders  of  the  author.  How  far  in  this  path  may 
he  go?  Unquestionably,  he  may  go  far,  very  far  with  the 
not  too  recent  dead;  but  with  the  living  how  far  may  he 
go,  how  daring  may  he  make  his  guess?  For  guess  it  will 


222  HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

be,  since  his  knowledge,  if  not  his  competence,  will  be  in- 
complete until  memoirs,  letters,  diaries,  reminiscences 
bring  him  their  enlightenment.  One  thinks  first  what  the 
author  may  suffer  when  violent  hands  are  laid  upon  his 
soul,  and  one  recoils;  but  what  of  the  public?  Must  the 
public,  then,  not  know  its  contemporaries  just  as  far  as  it 
can  —  these  contemporaries  whose  strong  influence  for 
good  or  evil  it  is  bound  to  undergo?  These  have  full 
license  to  play  upon  the  public;  shall  not  the  public,  hi  its 
turn,  be  free  to  scrutinize  to  any,  the  most  intimate  extent, 
the  human  stuff  from  which  emanates  the  strong  influence 
which  it  feels?  If  the  public  good  justifies  dissection,  does 
it  not  also  justify  vivisection?  Is  literature  an  amusement 
/only,  or  is  it  a  living  force  which  on  public  grounds  the 
/  critic  has  every  right  in  all  ways  to  measure?  Doubtless 
'  (his  right  in  the  particular  case  may  be  tested  by  the  impor- 
tance of  the  answer  to  the  people,  yet  the  grave  delicacy 
of  this  test  —  which  the  critic  must  apply  himself  —  is 
equaled  only  by  the  ticklishness  of  the  task.  Yet  there 
lies  the  path  of  truth,  serviceable,  ever  honorable  truth. 
The  critic  is,  in  fact,  confronted  by  two  standards.  Now 
and  again  he  must  make  the  choice  between  admirable 
conduct  and  admirable  criticism.  They  are  not  the  same. 
It  is  obvious  that  what  is  outrageous  conduct  may  be 
admirable  criticism,  that  what  is  admirable  conduct  may 
be  inferior,  shuffling  criticism.  Which  should  he  choose? 
If  we  make  duty  to  the  public  the  test,  logic  seems  to 
require  that  he  should  abate  no  jot  of  his  critical  message. 
It  certainly  seems  hard  that  he  should  be  held  to  a  double 
(and  contradictory)  standard  when  others  set  in  face  of  a 
like  dilemma  are  held  excused.  The  priest  is  upheld  in  not 
revealing  the  secrets  of  the  confessional,  the  lawyer  in  not 
betraying  the  secret  guilt  of  his  client,  although  as  a  citizen 
each  should  prefer  the  public  to  the  individual;  whereas 


HONEST  LITERARY  CRITICISM  223 

the  critic  who,  reversing  the  case,  sacrifices  the  individual 
to  the  public,  is  condemned.  The  public  should  recognize, 
I  think,  his  right  to  a  special  code  —  like  that  accorded  the 
priest,  the  lawyer,  the  soldier,  the  physician.  He  should 
be  relieved  of  certain  social  penalties,  fear  of  which  may 
cramp  his  freedom  and  so  lessen  his  value.  Who  cannot 
easily  see  that  a  critic  may  write  from  the  highest  sense  of 
duty  words  which  would  make  him  the  "no  gentleman" 
that  Cousin  said  Sainte-Beuve  was? 

But  the  whole  question  is  thorny;  that  writer  will  do  an 
excellent  service  to  letters  who  shall  speak  an  authorita- 
tive word  upon  the  ethics  of  criticism.  At  present,  there 
is  nothing  —  except  the  law  of  libel.  The  question  is 
raised  here  merely  to  the  end  of  asking  these  further  ques- 
tions: Would  not  the  greatest  freedom  help  rather  than 
hurt  the  cause  of  literature?  Is  not  the  double  standard 
too  dangerous  a  weapon  to  be  allowed  to  remain  in  the 
hands  of  the  upholders  of  the  Silent  Bargain? 

Meanwhile  —  until  the  problem  is  solved  —  the  critic 
must  be  an  explorer  of  untraveled  ethical  paths.  Let  him 
be  bold  —  whether  he  is  a  critic  of  the  deeds  of  the  man  of 
action,  or  of  those  subtler  but  no  less  real  deeds,  the  words 
of  an  author!  For,  the  necessary  qualifications  made,  all 
that  has  been  said  of  literary  criticism  applies  to  all  criti- 
cism —  everywhere  there  is  a  Silent  Bargain  to  be  fought, 
everywhere  honest  opinion  has  powerful  foes. 

The  thing  to  do  for  each  author  of  words  or  of  deeds, 
each  critic  of  one  or  the  other,  is  to  bring  his  own  pebble 
of  conviction  —  however  rough  and  sharp-cornered  —  and 
throw  it  into  that  stream  of  discussion  which  will  roll  and 
grind  it  against  others,  and  finally  make  of  it  and  of  them 
that  powder  of  soil  in  which,  let  us  hope,  future  men  will 
raise  the  crop  called  truth. 


DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  THE  AMERICAN 
PRESS 

BY   JAMES   S.    METCALFE 

A  LITTLE  insight  into  the  practical  conditions  which  sur- 
round newspaper  criticism  to-day  is  needed  before  we  can 
estimate  its  value  or  importance  as  an  institution.  Venial 
and  grossly  incompetent  critics  there  have  always  been, 
but  these  have  eventually  been  limited  in  their  influence 
through  the  inevitable  discovery  of  their  defects.  They 
were  and  are  individual  cases,  which  may  be  disregarded  in 
a  general  view.  The  question  to  be  considered  is,  whether 
our  newspapers  have  any  dramatic  criticism  worthy  of  the 
name,  and,  if  there  is  none,  what  are  the  causes  of  its  non- 
existence. 

When  the  late  William  Winter  lost  his  position  as  dram- 
atic critic  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  the  event  marked  not 
alone  the  virtual  disappearance  from  the  American  press 
of  dramatic  criticism  as  our  fathers  knew  and  appreciated 
it :  the  circumstances  of  the  severance  of  his  half -century 's 
connection  with  that  publication  also  illustrate  vividly  a 
principal  reason  for  the  extinction  of  criticism  as  it  used 
to  be. 

At  the  time  mentioned  the  Tribune  had  not  fallen  en- 
tirely from  its  early  estate.  It  was  still  a  journal  for  read- 
ers who  thought.  Its  strong  political  partisanship  limited 
its  circulation,  which  had  been  for  some  time  declining.  It 
had  been  hurt  by  the  fierce  competition  of  its  sensational 
and  more  enterprising  contemporaries.  The  Tribune  could 
not  afford  to  lose  any  of  the  advertising  revenue  which 
was  essential  to  its  very  existence. 


DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  AMERICAN  PRESS  225 

Mr.  Winter  would  not  write  to  orders.  He  had  certain 
prejudices,  but  they  were  honest  ones,  and  those  who  knew 
his  work  were  able  to  discount  them  in  sifting  his  opinions. 
For  instance,  he  had  a  sturdy  hatred  for  the  Ibsen  kind  of 
dissectional  drama,  and  it  was  practically  impossible  for 
him  to  do  justice  even  to  good  acting  in  plays  of  this  school. 

In  a  broader  way  he  was  the  enemy  of  uncleanness  on 
the  stage.  For  this  reason  he  had  frequently  denounced  a 
powerful  firm  of  managers  whom  he  held  to  be  principally 
responsible  for  the,  at  first  insidious  and  then  rapid,  growth 
of  indecency  in  our  theatre.  These  managers  controlled  a 
large  amount  of  the  theatrical  advertising.  The  Tribune 
frequently  printed  on  one  page  large  advertisements  of  the 
enterprises  these  men  represented,  and  on  another  page 
they  would  find  themselves  described,  in  Mr.  Winter's 
most  vigorous  English,  as  panders  who  were  polluting  the 
theatre  and  its  patrons.  They  knew  the  Tribune's  weak 
financial  condition  and  demanded  that  Mr.  Winter's  pen 
be  curbed,  the  alternative  being  a  withdrawal  of  their 
advertising  patronage.  What  happened  then  was  a  scandal, 
and  is  history  in  the  newspaper  and  theatrical  world. 

Mr.  Winter  refused  to  be  muzzled.  In  spite  of  a  half- 
century's  faithful  service,  he  was  practically  dismissed 
from  the  staff  of  the  Tribune.  If  it  had  not  been  for  a 
notable  benefit  performance  given  for  him  by  artists  who 
honored  him,  and  generously  patronized  by  his  friends  and 
the  public  who  knew  his  work,  his  last  days  would  have 
been  devoid  of  comfort. 

Mr.  Winter's  experience,  although  he  is  not  the  only 
critic  who  has  lost  his  means  of  livelihood  through  the 
influence  of  the  advertising  theatrical  manager,  is  in  some 
form  present  to  the  mind  of  every  newspaper  writer  in  the 
province  of  the  theatre.  No  matter  how  strong  the  assur- 
ance of  his  editor  that  he  may  go  as  far  as  he  pleases  in 


226  DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  AMERICAN  PRESS 

telling  the  truth,  he  knows  that  even  the  editor  himself  is 
in  fear  of  the  dread  summons  from  the  business  office.  If 
the  critic  has  had  any  experience  in  the  newspaper  busi- 
ness, —  no  longer  a  profession,  —  he  writes  what  he  pleases, 
but  with  his  subconscious  mind  tempering  justice  with 
mercy  for  the  enterprises  of  the  theatrical  advertiser.  This, 
of  course,  does  not  preclude  his  giving  a  critical  tone  to 
what  he  writes  by  finding  minor  defects  and  even  flaying 
unimportant  artists.  But  woe  be  unto  him  if  he  launches 
into  any  general  denunciation  of  theatrical  methods,  or 
attacks  the  enterprise  of  the  advertising  manager  in  a  way 
that  imperils  profits. 

There  are  exceptions  to  these  general  statements,  espe- 
cially outside  of  New  York.  There  are  a  few  newspapers 
left  where  the  editorial  conscience  outweighs  the  influence 
of  the  counting-room.  Even  in  these  cases  the  reviewer,  if 
he  is  wise,  steers  clear  of  telling  too  much  truth  about  enter- 
prises whose  belligerent  managers  are  only  too  glad  to 
worry  his  employers  with  complaints  of  persecution  or  in- 
justice. In  other  places  the  theatrical  advertising  is  not 
of  great  value,  particularly  where  the  moving-picture  has 
almost  supplanted  the  legitimate  theatre.  Here  we  occa- 
sionally find  criticism  of  the  old  sort,  particularly  if,  in  the 
local  reviewer's  mind,  the  entertainment  offered  is  not  up 
to  what  he  considers  the  Broadway  standard  of  production. 
Here  the  publisher's  regard  for  local  pride  will  sometimes 
excuse  the  reviewer's  affront  to  the  infrequently  visiting 
manager  and  the  wares  he  offers. 

Another  exception  is  the  purely  technical  critic  who  has 
no  broader  concern  with  the  theatre  than  recording  the 
impressions  which  come  to  him  through  his  eyes,  ears,  and 
memory.  He  is  safe,  because  he  rarely  offends.  He  is 
scarce,  because  he  is  little  read  and  newspapers  cannot 
give  him  the  space  he  requires  for  analysis  and  recollec- 


DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  AMERICAN  PRESS  227 

tion.  The  high-pressure  life  of  the  newspaper  reader  calls 
for  a  newspaper  made  under  high  pressure  and  for  to-day. 
In  this  process  there  is  little  opportunity  for  the  display 
of  the  scholarship,  leisurely  thinking,  and  carefully  evolved 
judgments  which  gave  their  fame  to  critics  of  an  earlier 
period.  In  the  few  remaining  survivals  of  the  strictly  tech- 
nical critic  their  failure  to  interest  many  readers,  or  exer- 
cise much  influence,  may  argue  less  a  lack  of  ability  on 
their  part  than  a  change  from  a  thinking  to  a  non-thinking 
public.  Even  in  the  big  Sunday  editions  of  the  city  dailies, 
where  the  pages  are  generously  padded  with  text  to  carry 
the  displayed  theatrical  advertising,  the  attempts  to  rise  to 
a  higher  critical  plane  than  is  possible  in  the  hurried  week- 
day review  are  in  themselves  frequent  evidence  that  tech- 
nical criticism  is  a  thing  of  the  past  so  far  as  the  newspapers 
are  concerned. 

The  close  connection  of  the  business  of  the  newspaper 
with  the  business  of  the  theatre  accounts  for  the  practical 
disappearance  of  the  element  of  fearlessness  in  critical 
dealing  with  the  art  of  the  stage,  particularly  as  the  busi- 
ness control  of  the  theatre  is  largely  responsible  for  what- 
ever decline  we  may  discern  in  the  art  of  the  theatre.  Of 
course,  if  criticism  were  content  to  concern  itself  only 
with  results,  and  not  to  look  for  causes,  the  matter  of  busi- 
ness interests  would  figure  little  in  the  discussion.  But 
when  the  critic  dares  to  go  below  the  surface  and  discern 
commercialism  as  the  main  cause  of  the  decline  that  he 
condemns  in  the  art  of  the  stage,  he  finds  himself  on  dan- 
gerous ground. 

The  theatre  has  always  had  to  have  its  business  side. 
Actors  must  live  and  the  accessories  of  their  art  must  be 
provided.  To  this  extent  the  stage  has  always  catered  to 
the  public.  But  from  the  days  of  the  strolling  player  to 
those  of  the  acting-manager  the  voice  from  back  of  the 


228  DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  AMERICAN  PRESS 

curtain  has,  until  of  recent  years,  had  at  least  as  much  of 
command  as  that  of  the  ticket-seller.  Both  in  the  theatre 
and  in  the  press  modern  conditions  have  in  great  measure 
thrown  the  control  to  the  material  side;  and  just  as  the 
artist  and  dramatist  have  become  subservient  to  the  man- 
ager, the  editor  and  critic  have  come  under  the  domination 
of  the  publisher. 

The  need  of  a  greater  revenue  to  house  plays  and  public 
has  placed  the  theatre  in  the  hands  of  those  who  could 
manage  to  secure  that  revenue.  The  same  necessity  on 
the  material  and  mechanical  side  has  put  the  power  of  the 
press  in  the  hands  of  those  who  could  best  supply  its  finan- 
cial needs.  With  both  theatre  and  press  on  a  commercial 
basis,  it  follows  naturally  that  the  art  of  acting  and  the 
art  of  criticism  should  both  decline. 

Here  we  have  the  main  causes  that  work  from  the  inside 
for  the  deterioration  of  an  art  and  for  the  destruction  of 
the  standards  by  which  that  art  is  measured.  The  outside 
causes  are,  of  course,  the  basic  ones,  but  before  we  get  to 
them  we  must  understand  the  connecting  links  which  join 
the  cause  to  the  effect.  To-day  we  certainly  have  no 
Hazlitts  or  Sarceys  writing  for  the  American  press.  It 
might  be  enlightening  with  respect  to  present  conditions 
to  consider  the  probabilities  and  circumstances  of  their 
employment  if  they  were  here  and  in  the  flesh.  Can  any 
one  conceive  of  an  American  newspaper  giving  space  to 
Hazlitt's  work,  even  if  he  treated  of  the  things  of  to-day? 
Even  if  he  wrote  his  opinions  gratis  and  in  the  form  of 
letters  to  the  editor,  it  would  presumably  be  indeed  a  dull 
journalistic  day  when  room  could  be  found  for  them. 

Sarcey,  writing  in  the  lighter  French  vein  and  being 
almost  as  much  a  chroniqueur  as  a  critic,  might  possibly 
have  found  opportunity  to  be  read  in  an  American  news- 
paper, if  he  could  have  curbed  his  independence  of  thought. 


DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  AMERICAN  PRESS  229 

Starting  from  obscurity,  it  is  a  question  whether  he  would 
ever  have  been  able  to  gain  opportunity  to  be  read  simply 
as  a  critic,  for  the  processes  by  which  newspaper  critics  are 
created  or  evolved  seem  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
possession  of  education,  training,  or  ability.  In  the  major- 
ity of  newspaper  offices  the  function  of  dramatic  critic  de- 
volves by  chance  or  convenience,  and  frequently  goes  by 
favoritism  to  some  member  of  the  staff  with  a  fondness  for 
the  theatre  and  an  appreciation  of  free  seats.  One  of  New 
York's  best  known  dailies  frankly  treats  theatrical  review- 
ing as  nothing  more  than  reportorial  work,  to  be  covered 
as  would  be  any  other  news  assignment.  This  publication 
and  a  good  many  others  are  far  more  particular  about  the 
technical  equipment  of  the  writers  who  describe  baseball 
games,  horse-races,  and  prize-fights,  than  about  the  fitness 
of  those  who  are  to  weigh  the  merits  of  plays  and  acting. 
The  ability  to  write  without  offending  the  advertising 
theatrical  manager  seems  in  the  last  case  to  be  the  only 
absolutely  essential  qualification. 

With  these  things  in  mind  it  will  be  seen  that  there  is 
little  to  tempt  any  one  with  ambition  to  contemplate 
dramatic  criticism  as  a  possible  profession.  The  uncer- 
tainty of  employment,  the  slenderness  of  return,  and  the 
limitations  on  freedom  of  expression  would  keep  even  the 
most  ardent  lover  of  the  theatre  from  thinking  of  criticism 
as  a  Me  occupation.  Given  the  education,  the  experience, 
the  needed  judicial  temperament,  and  the  writing  ability, 
all  these  are  no  assurance  that  opportunity  can  be  found 
to  utilize  them. 

Of  themselves,  the  conditions  that  surround  the  calling 
of  the  critic  are  enough  to  account  for  the  absence  from 
the  American  newspapers  of  authoritative  criticism.  These 
conditions  might  be  overcome  if  the  spirit  of  the  times 
demanded.  But  there  can  be  no  such  demand  so  long  as 


230  DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  AMERICAN  PRESS 

the  press  finds  it  more  profitable  to  reflect  the  moods, 
thoughts,  and  opinions  of  the  public  than  to  lead  and  direct 
them.  When  the  changed  conditions  of  producing  news- 
papers transferred  the  control  of  their  policy  from  the  edi- 
torial rooms  to  the  counting-rooms,  the  expression  of 
opinion  on  any  subject  became  of  little  value  compared 
with  catering  to  the  popular  love  of  sensation  and  the  popu- 
lar interest  in  the  trivial. 

The  change  does  not  mean  that  there  is  any  ignoring  of 
the  theatre  in  the  newspapers.  The  institution  lends  itself 
admirably  to  modern  newspaper  exploitation.  Destroying 
the  fascinating  mystery  which  once  shrouded  life  back  of 
the  curtain,  for  a  long  time  made  good  copy  for  the  press. 
There  is  no  longer  any  mystery,  because  the  great  space 
that  the  newspapers  devote  to  gossip  of  the  theatre  and 
its  people  has  flooded  with  publicity  every  corner  of  the 
institution  and  every  event  of  their  lives.  The  process  has 
been  aided  by  managers  through  a  perhaps  mistaken  idea 
of  the  value  of  the  advertising,  and  by  artists  for  that 
reason  and  for  its  appeal  to  their  vanity. 

Criticism  has  no  place  in  publicity  of  this  sort,  because 
criticism  concerns  itself  only  with  the  art  and  the  broad 
interests  of  the  theatre.  The  news  reporter  is  often  better 
qualified  to  describe  the  milk-baths  of  a  stage  notoriety 
than  is  the  ablest  critic.  With  our  newspapers  as  they  are, 
and  with  our  public  as  it  is,  the  reportorial  account  of  the 
milk-bath  is  of  more  value  to  the  newspaper  and  its  readers 
than  the  most  brilliant  criticism  that  could  be  written  of 
an  important  event  in  the  art  of  the  theatre. 

With  "give  the  people  what  they  want'*  the  prevailing 
law  of  press  and  theatre,  it  is  idle  just  now  to  look  for 
dramatic  criticism  of  value  in  our  newspapers.  We  may 
flatter  ourselves  that  as  a  people  we  have  a  real  interest  in 
theatrical  and  other  arts.  We  can  prove  it  by  the  vast 


DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  AMERICAN  PRESS  231 

sums  we  spend  on  theatres,  music,  and  pictures.  With  all 
our  proof,  we  at  heart  know  that  this  is  not  true.  Even 
in  the  more  sensual  art  of  music  we  import  our  standards, 
in  pictures  we  are  governed  more  by  cost  than  quality,  and 
in  the  theatre  —  note  where  most  of  our  expenditure  goes. 
In  that  institution,  with  the  creation  of  whose  standards 
we  are  concerning  ourselves  just  now,  consider  the  charac- 
ter of  what  are  called  "popular  successes,"  and  observe  the 
short  shrift  given  to  most  of  the  efforts  which  call  for  en- 
joyment of  the  finer  art  of  the  stage  through  recognition 
of  that  art  when  it  is  displayed. 

It  is  no  disgrace  that  we  are  not  an  artistic  people.  Our 
accomplishments  and  our  interests  are  in  other  fields, 
where  we  more  than  match  the  achievements  of  older 
civilizations.  With  us  the  theatre  is  not  an  institution  to 
which  we  turn  for  its  literature  and  its  interpretations  of 
character.  We  avoid  it  when  it  makes  any  demand  on 
our  thinking  powers.  We  turn  to  it  as  a  relaxation  from 
the  use  of  those  powers  in  more  material  directions.  We 
do  not  wish  to  study  our  stage,  its  methods  and  its  prod- 
ucts. We  ask  it  only  to  divert  us.  This  is  the  general 
attitude  of  the  American  to  the  theatre,  and  the  excep- 
tions are  few. 

In  these  conditions  it  is  not  strange  that  we  have  no 
scholarly  critics  to  help  in  establishing  standards  for  our 
theatre,  or  that  there  is  little  demand  for  real  criticism, 
least  of  all  in  the  daily  press.  As  we  grow  to  be  an  older 
and  more  leisurely  country,  when  our  masses  cease  to  find 
in  the  crudities  of  the  moving-picture  their  ideal  of  the 
drama,  and  when  our  own  judgments  become  more  refined, 
we  shall  need  the  real  critic,  and  even  the  daily  press  will 
find  room  for  his  criticisms  and  reward  for  his  experience, 
ability,  and  judgment. 

The  province  and  profit  of  our  newspapers  lie  in  inter- 


232  DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  AMERICAN  PRESS 

esting  their  readers.  Analysis  of  artistic  endeavor  is  not 
interesting  to  a  people  who  have  scant  time  and  little  in- 
clination for  any  but  practical  and  diverting  things.  Until 
the  people  demand  it  and  the  conditions  that  surround  the 
critic  improve,  what  passes  for  criticism  in  our  daily  press 
is  not  likely  to  increase  in  quantity  or  improve  in  quality. 


THE  HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED 
SUPPLEMENT 

BY   RALPH   BERGENGREN 


TEN  or  a  dozen  years  ago,  —  the  exact  date  is  here 
immaterial,  —  an  enterprising  newspaper  publisher  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  appealing  to  what  is  known  as  the 
American  "sense  of  humor"  by  printing  a  so-called  comic 
supplement  in  colors.  He  chose  Sunday  as  of  all  days  the 
most  lacking  in  popular  amusements,  carefully  restricted 
himself  to  pictures  without  humor  and  color  without 
beauty,  and  presently  inaugurated  a  new  era  in  American 
journalism.  The  colored  supplement  became  an  institu- 
tion. No  Sunday  is  complete  without  it  —  not  because 
its  pages  invariably  delight,  but  because,  like  flies  in  sum- 
mer, there  is  no  screen  that  will  altogether  exclude  them. 
A  newspaper  without  a  color  press  hardly  considers  itself  a 
newspaper,  and  the  smaller  journals  are  utterly  unmindful 
of  the  kindness  of  Providence  in  putting  the  guardian  angel, 
Poverty,  outside  their  portals.  Sometimes,  indeed,  they 
think  to  outwit  this  kindly  interference  by  printing  a  syn- 
dicated comic  page  without  color;  and  mercy  is  thus  served 
in  a  half  portion,  for,  uncolored,  the  pictures  are  inevitably 
about  twice  as  attractive.  Some  print  them  without  color, 
but  on  pink  paper.  Others  rejoice,  as  best  they  may,  in  a 
press  that  will  reproduce  at  least  a  fraction  of  the  original 
discord.  One  and  all  they  unite  vigorously,  as  if  driven  by 
a  perverse  and  cynical  intention,  to  prove  the  American 
sense  of  humor  a  thing  of  national  shame  and  degradation. 
Fortunately  the  public  has  so  little  to  say  about  its  reading 
matter  that  one  may  fairly  suspend  judgment. 

17 


234    HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED  SUPPLEMENT 

For,  after  all,  what  is  the  sense  of  humor  upon  which 
every  man  prides  himself,  as  belonging  only  to  a  gifted 
minority?  Nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  certain  mental 
quickness,  alert  to  catch  the  point  of  an  anecdote  or  to 
appreciate  the  surprise  of  a  new  and  unexpected  point  of 
view  toward  an  old  and  familiar  phenomenon.  Add  to- 
gether these  gifted  minorities,  and  each  nation  reaches 
what  is  fallaciously  termed  the  national  sense  of  humor 
—  an  English  word,  incidentally,  for  which  D'Israeli  was 
unable  to  find  an  equivalent  in  any  other  language,  and 
which  is  in  itself  simply  a  natural  development  of  the 
critical  faculty,  born  of  a  present  need  of  describing  what 
earlier  ages  had  taken  for  granted.  The  jovial  porter  and 
his  charming  chance  acquaintances,  the  three  ladies  of 
Bagdad,  enlivened  conversation  with  a  kind  of  humor, 
carefully  removed  from  the  translation  of  commerce  and 
the  public  libraries,  for  which  they  needed  no  descriptive 
noun,  but  which  may  nevertheless  be  fairly  taken  as  typical 
of  that  city  in  the  day  of  the  Caliph  Haroun. 

The  Middle  Ages  rejoiced  in  a  similar  form  of  persiflage, 
and  the  present  day  in  France,  Germany,  England,  or 
America,  for  example,  inherits  it,  —  minus  its  too  juve- 
nile indecency, — in  the  kind  of  pleasure  afforded  by  these 
comic  supplements.  Their  kinship  with  the  lower  publi- 
cations of  European  countries  is  curiously  evident  to  who- 
ever has  examined  them.  Vulgarity,  in  fact,  speaks  the 
same  tongue  in  all  countries,  talks,  even  in  art-ruled 
France,  with  the  same  crude  draughtsmanship,  and  usurps 
universally  a  province  that  Emerson  declared  "far  better 
than  wit  for  a  poet  or  writer."  In  its  expression  and  enjoy- 
ment no  country  can  fairly  claim  the  dubious  superiority. 
All  are  on  the  dead  level  of  that  surprising  moment 
when  the  savage  had  ceased  to  be  dignified  and  man  had 
not  yet  become  rational.  Men,  indeed,  speak  freely  and 


HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED  SUPPLEMENT     235 

vain-gloriously  of  their  national  sense  of  humor;  but  they 
are  usually  unconscious  idealists.  For  the  comic  cut  that 
amuses  the  most  stupid  Englishman  may  be  shifted  entire 
into  an  American  comic  supplement;  the  "catastrophe 
joke"  of  the  American  comic  weekly  of  the  next  higher 
grade  is  stolen  in  quantity  to  delight  the  readers  of  similar 
but  more  economical  publications  in  Germany;  the  lower 
humor  of  France,  barring  the  expurgations  demanded  by 
Anglo-Saxon  prudery,  is  equally  transferable;  and  the 
average  American  often  examines  on  Sunday  morning, 
without  knowing  it,  an  international  loan-exhibit. 

Humor,  in  other  words,  is  cosmopolitan,  reduced,  since 
usage  insists  on  reducing  it,  at  this  lowest  imaginable  level, 
to  such  obvious  and  universal  elements  that  any  intellect 
can  grasp  their  combinations.  And  at  its  highest  it  is 
again  cosmopolitan,  like  art;  like  art,  a  cultivated  charac- 
teristic, no  more  spontaneously  natural  than  a  "love  of 
nature."  It  is  an  insult  to  the  whole  line  of  English  and 
American  humorists  —  Sterne,  Thackeray,  Dickens,  Mere- 
dith, Twain,  Holmes,  Irving,  and  others  of  a  distinguished 
company  —  to  include  as  humor  what  is  merely  the  crude 
brutality  of  human  nature,  mocking  at  grief  and  laughing 
boisterously  at  physical  deformity.  And  in  these  Sunday 
comics  Humor,  stolen  by  vandals  from  her  honest,  if  some- 
times rough-and-ready,  companionship,  thrusts  a  woe- 
be-gone  visage  from  the  painted  canvas  of  the  national 
side-show,  and  none  too  poor  to  "shy  a  brick"  at  her. 

At  no  period  in  the  world's  history  has  there  been  a 
steadier  output  of  so-called  humor  —  especially  in  this 
country.  The  simple  idea  of  printing  a  page  of  comic 
pictures  has  produced  families.  The  very  element  of  va- 
riety has  been  obliterated  by  the  creation  of  types :  a  con- 
fusing medley  of  impossible  countrymen,  mules,  goats,  Ger- 
man-Americans and  their  irreverent  progeny,  specialized 


236     HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED  SUPPLEMENT 

children  with  a  genius  for  annoying  their  elders,  white- 
whiskered  elders  with  a  genius  for  playing  practical  jokes 
on  then-  grandchildren,  policemen,  Chinamen,  Irishmen, 
negroes,  inhuman  conceptions  of  the  genus  tramp,  boy 
inventors  whose  inventions  invariably  end  in  causing  some- 
body to  be  mirthfully  spattered  with  paint  or  joyously 
torn  to  pieces  by  machinery,  bright  boys  with  a  talent  for 
deceit,  laziness,  or  cruelty,  and  even  the  beasts  of  the 
jungle  dehumanized  to  the  point  of  practical  joking. 
Mirabile  dictu!  —  some  of  these  things  have  even  been 
dramatized. 

With  each  type  the  reader  is  expected  to  become  per- 
sonally acquainted,  —  to  watch  for  its  coming  on  Sunday 
mornings,  happily  wondering  with  what  form  of  inhuman- 
ity the  author  will  have  been  able  to  endow  his  brainless 
manikins.  And  the  authors  are  often  men  of  intelligence, 
capable  here  and  there  of  a  bit  of  adequate  drawing  and 
an  idea  that  is  honestly  and  self-respectingly  provocative 
of  laughter.  Doubtless  they  are  often  ashamed  of  their 
product;  but  the  demand  of  the  hour  is  imperative.  The 
presses  are  waiting.  They,  too,  are  both  quick  and  heavy. 
And  the  cry  of  the  publisher  is  for  "fun"  that  no  intellect 
in  all  his  heterogeneous  public  shall  be  too  dull  to  appre- 
ciate. We  see,  indeed,  the  outward  manifestation  of  a 
curious  paradox:  humor  prepared  and  printed  for  the 
extremely  dull,  and  —  what  is  still  more  remarkable  — 
excused  by  grown  men,  capable  of  editing  newspapers,  on 
the  ground  that  it  gives  pleasure  to  children. 

Reduced  to  first  principles,  therefore,  it  is  not  humor, 
but  simply  a  supply  created  in  answer  to  a  demand,  hastily 
produced  by  machine  methods  and  hastily  accepted  by 
editors  too  busy  with  other  editorial  duties  to  examine  it 
intelligently.  Under  these  conditions  "humor"  is  nat- 
urally conceived  as  something  preeminently  quick;  and  so 


HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED  SUPPLEMENT     237 

quickness  predominates.  Somebody  is  always  hitting 
somebody  else  with  a  club;  somebody  is  always  falling 
downstairs,  or  out  of  a  balloon,  or  over  a  cliff,  or  into  a 
river,  a  barrel  of  paint,  a  basket  of  eggs,  a  convenient  cis- 
tern, or  a  tub  of  hot  water.  The  comic  cartoonists  have 
already  exhausted  every  available  substance  into  which  one 
can  fall,  and  are  compelled  to  fall  themselves  into  a  verita- 
ble ocean  of  vain  repetition.  They  have  exhausted  every- 
thing by  which  one  can  be  blown  up.  They  have  exhausted 
everything  by  which  one  can  be  knocked  down  or  run  over. 
And  if  the  victim  is  never  actually  killed  in  these  mirthful 
experiments,  it  is  obviously  because  he  would  then  cease 
to  be  funny  —  which  is  very  much  the  point  of  view  of  the 
Spanish  Inquisition,  the  cat  with  a  mouse,  or  the  American 
Indian  with  a  captive.  But  respect  for  property,  respect 
for  parents,  for  law,  for  decency,  for  truth,  for  beauty,  for 
kindliness,  for  dignity,  or  for  honor,  are  killed,  without 
mercy.  Morality  alone,  in  its  restricted  sense  of  sexual 
relations,  is  treated  with  courtesy,  although  we  find 
throughout  the  accepted  theory  that  marriage  is  a  union 
of  uncongenial  spirits,  and  the  chart  of  petty  marital  deceit 
is  carefully  laid  out  and  marked  for  whoever  is  likely  to 
respond  to  endless  unconscious  suggestions.  Sadly  must 
the  American  child  sometimes  be  puzzled  while  comparing 
his  own  grandmother  with  the  visiting  mother-in-law  of 
the  colored  comic. 

ii 

Lest  this  seem  a  harsh,  even  an  unkind  inquiry  into  the 
innocent  amusements  of  other  people,  a  few  instances  may 
be  mentioned,  drawn  from  the  Easter  Sunday  output  of 
papers  otherwise  both  respectable  and  unrespectable; 
papers,  moreover,  depending  largely  on  syndicated  humor 
that  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  reached  a  total  circulation 


238    HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED  SUPPLEMENT 

of  several  million  readers.  We  have,  to  begin  with,  two 
rival  versions  of  a  creation  that  made  the  originator  fa- 
mous, and  that  chronicle  the  adventures  of  a  small  boy 
whose  name  and  features  are  everywhere  familiar.  Often 
these  adventures,  in  the  original  youngster,  have  been 
amusing,  and  amusingly  seasoned  with  the  salt  of  legiti- 
mately absurd  phraseology.  But  the  pace  is  too  fast,  even 
for  the  originator.  The  imitator  fails  invariably  to  catch 
the  spirit  of  them,  and  in  this  instance  is  driven  to  an  an- 
cient subterfuge. 

To  come  briefly  to  an  unpleasant  point:  an  entire  page 
is  devoted  to  showing  the  reader  how  the  boy  was  made 
ill  by  smoking  his  father's  cigars.  Incidentally  he  falls 
downstairs.  Meanwhile,  his  twin  is  rejoicing  the  read- 
ers of  another  comic  supplement  by  spoiling  a  wedding 
party;  it  is  the  minister  who  first  comes  to  grief,  and  is 
stood  on  his  head,  the  boy  who,  later,  is  quite  properly 
thrashed  by  an  angry  mother  —  and  it  is  all  presumably 
very  delightful  and  a  fine  example  for  the  imitative  genius 
of  other  children.  Further,  we  meet  a  mule  who  kicks  a 
policeman  and  whose  owner  is  led  away  to  the  lockup;  a 
manicured  vacuum  who  slips  on  a  banana  peel,  crushes  the 
box  containing  his  fiancee's  Easter  bonnet,  and  is  assaulted 
by  her  father  (he,  after  the  manner  of  comic  fathers,  having 
just  paid  one  hundred  dollars  for  the  bonnet  out  of  a 
plethoric  pocketbook) ;  a  nondescript  creature,  presumably 
human,  who  slips  on  another  banana  peel  and  knocks  over 
a  citizen,  who  in  turn  knocks  over  a  policeman,  and  is  also 
marched  off  to  undeserved  punishment.  We  see  the  Ger- 
man-American child  covering  his  father  with  water  from 
a  street  gutter;  another  child  deluging  his  parent  with 
water  from  a  hose;  another  teasing  his  younger  brother 
and  sister.  To  keep  the  humor  of  the  banana  peel  in 
countenance,  we  find  the  picture  of  a  fat  man  accidentally 


HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED  SUPPLEMENT     239 

sitting  down  on  a  tack;  he  exclaims,  "Ouch!"  throws  a 
basket  of  eggs  into  the  air,  and  they  come  down  on  the 
head  of  the  boy  who  arranged  the  tacks.  We  see  two  white 
boys  beating  a  little  negro  over  the  head  with  a  plank  (the 
hardness  of  the  negro's  skull  here  affording  the  humorous 
motif],  and  we  see  an  idiot  blowing  up  a  mule  with  dyna- 
mite. Lunacy,  in  short,  could  go  no  further  than  this 
pandemonium  of  undisguised  coarseness  and  brutality  — 
the  humor  offered  on  Easter  Sunday  morning  by  leading 
American  newspapers  for  the  edification  of  American 
readers. 

And  every  one  of  the  countless  creatures,  even  to  the 
poor,  maligned  dumb  animals,  is  saying  something.  To 
the  woeful  extravagance  of  foolish  acts  must  be  added  an 
equal  extravagance  of  foolish  words:  "Out  with  you,  in- 
toxicated rowdy!"  "Shut  up!"  "Skidoo!"  "They've  set 
the  dog  on  me."  "  Hee-haw."  "  My  uncle  had  it  tooken  in 
Hamburg."  "Dat  old  gentleman  will  slip  on  dem  banana 
skins,"  "Little  Buster  got  all  that  was  coming  to  him." 
"Aw,  shut  up!"  "Y-e-e-eG-o-d-s!"  "Ouch!"  "Golly, dy- 
namite am  powerful  stuff."  "I  am  listening  to  vat  der  vild 
vaves  is  sedding."  "I  don't  think  Pa  and  I  will  ever  get 
along  together  until  he  gets  rid  of  his  conceit."  "Phew!" 

The  brightness  of  this  repartee  could  be  continued  in- 
definitely; profanity,  of  course,  is  indicated  by  dashes  and 
exclamation  points ;  a  person  who  has  fallen  overboard  says, 
"Blub!  "  concussion  is  visibly  represented  by  stars;  "biff" 
and  "bang"  are  used,  according  to  taste,  to  accompany  a 
blow  on  the  nose  or  an  explosion  of  dynamite. 

From  this  brief  summary  it  may  be  seen  how  few  are 
the  fundamental  conceptions  that  supply  the  bulk  of 
almost  the  entire  output,  and  in  these  days  of  syndicated 
ideas  a  comparatively  small  body  of  men  produce  the 
greater  part  of  it.  Physical  pain  is  the  most  glaringly 


240    HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED  SUPPLEMENT 

omnipresent  of  these  motifs;  it  is  counted  upon  invariably 
to  amuse  the  average  humanity  of  our  so-called  Christian 
civilization.  The  entire  group  of  Easter  Sunday  pictures 
constitutes  a  saturnalia  of  prearranged  accidents  in  which 
the  artist  is  never  hampered  by  the  exigencies  of  logic; 
machinery  in  which  even  the  presupposed  poorest  intellect 
might  be  expected  to  detect  the  obvious  flaw  accomplishes 
its  evil  purpose  with  inevitable  accuracy ;  jails  and  lunatic 
asylums  are  crowded  with  new  inmates;  the  policeman 
always  uses  his  club  or  revolver;  the  parents  usually  thrash 
their  offspring  at  the  end  of  the  performance;  household 
furniture  is  demolished,  clothes  ruined,  and  unsalable  eggs 
broken  by  the  dozen.  Deceit  is  another  universal  concept 
of  humor,  which  combines  easily  with  the  physical  pain 
motif;  and  mistaken  identity,  in  which  the  juvenile  idiot 
disguises  himself  and  deceives  his  parents  in  various  ways, 
is  another  favorite  resort  of  the  humorists.  The  paucity 
of  invention  is  hardly  less  remarkable  than  the  willingness 
of  the  inventors  to  sign  their  products,  or  the  willingness 
of  editors  to  publish  them.  But  the  age  is  notoriously  one 
in  which  editors  underrate  and  insult  the  public  intelli- 
gence. 

Doubtless  there  are  some  to  applaud  the  spectacle,  — 
the  imitative  spirits,  for  example,  who  recently  compelled 
a  woman  to  seek  the  protection  of  a  police  department 
because  of  the  persecution  of  a  gang  of  boys  and  young 
men  shouting  "hee-haw'*  whenever  she  appeared  on  the 
street;  the  rowdies  whose  exploits  figure  so  frequently  in 
metropolitan  newspapers;  or  that  class  of  adults  who  tell 
indecent  stories  at  the  dinner-table  and  laugh  joyously 
at  their  wives'  efforts  to  turn  the  conversation.  But  the 
Sunday  comic  goes  into  other  homes  than  these,  and  is 
handed  to  their  children  by  parents  whose  souls  would 
shudder  at  the  thought  of  a  dime  novel.  Alas,  poor  par- 


HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED  SUPPLEMENT     241 

ents!  That  very  dime  novel  as  a  rule  holds  up  ideals  of 
bravery  and  chivalry,  rewards  good  and  punishes  evil, 
offers  at  the  worst  a  temptation  to  golden  adventuring, 
for  which  not  one  child  in  a  million  will  ever  attempt  to 
surmount  the  obvious  obstacles.  It  is  no  easy  matter  to 
become  an  Indian  fighter,  pirate,  or  detective;  the  dream 
is,  after  all,  a  day-dream,  tinctured  with  the  beautiful  color 
of  old  romance,  and  built  on  eternal  qualities  that  the 
world  has  rightfully  esteemed  worthy  of  emulation.  And 
in  place  of  it  the  comic  supplement,  like  that  other  brutal 
horror,  the  juvenile  comic  story,  which  goes  on  its  immoral 
way  unnoticed,  raises  no  high  ambition,  but  devotes  itself 
to  "mischief  made  easy."  Hard  as  it  is  to  become  an 
Indian  fighter,  any  boy  has  plenty  of  opportunity  to  throw 
stones  at  his  neighbor's  windows.  And  on  any  special 
occasion,  such,  for  example,  as  Christmas  or  Washington's 
Birthday,  almost  the  entire  ponderous  machine  is  set  in 
motion  to  make  reverence  and  ideals  ridiculous.  Evil 
example  is  strong  in  proportion  as  it  is  easy  to  imitate. 
The  state  of  mind  that  accepts  the  humor  of  the  comic 
weekly  is  the  same  as  that  which  shudders  at  Ibsen,  and 
smiles  complacently  at  the  musical  comedy,  with  its  open 
acceptance  of  the  wild-oats  theory,  and  its  humorous  expo- 
sition of  a  kind  of  wild  oats  that  youth  may  harvest  without 
going  out  of  its  own  neighborhood. 

In  all  this  noisy,  explosive,  garrulous  pandemonium  one 
finds  here  and  there  a  moment  of  rest  and  refreshment  — 
the  work  of  the  few  pioneers  of  decency  and  decorum  brave 
enough  to  bring  their  wares  to  the  noisome  market  and 
lucky  enough  to  infuse  their  spirit  of  refinement,  art,  and 
genuine  humor  into  its  otherwise  hopeless  atmosphere. 
Preeminent  among  them  stands  the  inventor  of  "Little 
Nemo  in  Slumberland,"  a  man  of  genuine  pantomimic 
humor,  charming  draughtsmanship,  and  an  excellent  deco- 


242    HUMOR  OF  THE  COLORED  SUPPLEMENT 

rative  sense  of  color,  who  has  apparently  studied  his  me- 
dium and  makes  the  best  of  it.  And  with  him  come  Peter 
Newell,  Grace  G.  Weiderseim,  and  Conde,  —  now  illus- 
trating Uncle  Remus  for  a  Sunday  audience,  —  whose  pic- 
tures in  some  of  the  Sunday  papers  are  a  delightful  and 
self-respecting  proof  of  the  possibilities  of  this  type  of 
journalism.  Out  of  the  noisy  streets,  the  cheap  restaurants 
with  their  unsteady-footed  waiters  and  avalanches  of  soup 
and  crockery,  out  of  the  slums,  the  quarreling  families,  the 
prisons  and  the  lunatic  asylums,  we  step  for  a  moment  into 
the  world  of  childish  fantasy,  closing  the  iron  door  behind 
us  and  trying  to  shut  out  the  clamor  of  hooting  mobs,  the 
laughter  of  imbeciles,  and  the  crash  of  explosives.  After 
all,  there  is  no  reason  why  children  should  not  have  their 
innocent  amusement  on  Sunday  morning;  but  there  seems 
to  be  every  reason  why  the  average  editor  of  the  weekly 
comic  supplement  should  be  given  a  course  in  art,  litera- 
ture, common  sense,  and  Christianity. 


THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

BY   JAMES   H.    COLLINS 


NEW  YORK'S  theatres,  cafes,  and  hotels,  with  many  of 
her  industries,  are  supported  by  a  floating  population.  The 
provinces  know  this,  and  it  pleases  them  mightily.  But 
how  many  of  the  actual  inhabitants  of  New  York  know 
of  the  large  floating  population  that  is  associated  with 
her  magazines,  newspapers,  and  publishing  interests?  —  a 
floating  population  of  the  arts,  mercenaries  of  pen  and 
typewriter,  brush  and  camera,  living  for  the  most  part  in 
the  town  and  its  suburbs,  yet  leading  an  unattached  exist- 
ence, that,  to  the  provincial  accustomed  to  dealing  with 
life  on  a  salary,  seems  not  only  curious  but  extremely 
precarious  —  as  it  often  is. 

The  free-lance  writer  and  artist  abound  in  the  metropo- 
lis, and  with  them  is  associated  a  motley  free-lance  crew 
that  has  no  counterpart  elsewhere  on  this  continent.  New 
York's  "Grub  Street"  is  one  of  the  truest  indications  of 
her  metropolitan  character.  In  other  American  cities  the 
newspaper  is  written,  illustrated,  and  edited  by  men  and 
women  on  salaries,  as  are  the  comparatively  few  magazines 
and  the  technical  press  covering  our  country's  material 
activities.  But  in  New  York,  while  hundreds  of  editors, 
writers,  and  artists  also  rely  upon  a  stated,  definite  stipend, 
several  times  as  many  more  live  without  salaried  connec- 
tions, sometimes  by  necessity,  but  as  often  by  choice. 
These  are  the  dwellers  in  Grub  Street. 

This  thoroughfare  has  no  geographical  definition.  Many 
of  the  natives  of  Manhattan  Island  know  as  little  of  it 


244  THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

as  do  the  truck  loads  of  visitors  "seeing  New  York,"  who 
cross  and  recross  it  unwittingly.  Grub  Street  begins  no- 
where and  ends  nowhere;  yet  between  these  vague  ter- 
minals it  runs  to  all  points  of  the  compass,  turns  sharp 
corners,  penetrates  narrow  passageways,  takes  its  pedes- 
trians up  dark  old  stairways  one  moment  and  through 
sumptuous  halls  of  steel  and  marble  the  next,  touching 
along  the  way  more  diverse  interests  than  any  of  the  actual 
streets  of  Manhattan,  and  embracing  ideals,  tendencies, 
influences,  and  life-currents  that  permeate  the  nation's 
whole  material  and  spiritual  existence.  Greater  Grub 
Street  is  so  unobtrusive  that  a  person  with  no  affair  to 
transact  therein  might  dwell  a  quarter-century  in  New 
York  and  never  discover  it;  yet  it  is  likewise  so  palpable 
and  vast  to  its  denizens  that  by  no  ordinary  circumstances 
would  any  of  them  be  likely  to  explore  all  its  infinite 
arteries,  veins,  and  ganglia. 

Not  long  ago  there  arrived  on  Park  Row  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  a  newspaper  reporter  of  conspicuous  ability 
along  a  certain  line.  In  the  West  he  had  made  a  name  for 
his  knack  at  getting  hold  of  corporate  reports  and  court 
decisions  several  days  in  advance  of  rival  papers.  Once, 
in  Chicago,  by  climbing  over  the  ceiling  of  a  jury-room,  he 
was  able  to  publish  the  verdict  in  a  sensational  murder  trial 
a  half-hour  before  it  had  been  brought  in  to  the  judge.  A 
man  invaluable  in  following  the  devious  windings  of  the 
day's  history  as  it  must  be  written  in  newspapers,  he  had 
come  to  Park  Row  as  the  ultimate  field  of  development  for 
his  especial  talent.  To  demonstrate  what  he  had  done,  he 
brought  along  a  thick  sheaf  of  introductory  letters  from 
Western  editors.  There  was  one  for  every  prominent  edi- 
tor and  publisher  in  the  New  York  newspaper  field,  yet 
after  all  had  been  delivered  it  seemed  to  avail  nothing. 
Nobody  had  offered  him  a  situation. 


THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET  245 

"  The  way  to  get  along  in  New  York  is  to  go  out  and  get 
the  stuff,"  explained  a  free  lance  whom  he  fell  in  with  in 
a  William  Street  restaurant.  "Get  copy  they  can't  turn 
down  —  deliver  the  goods." 

In  that  dull  summer  season  all  the  papers  were  filled 
with  gossip  about  a  subscription  book  that  had  been  sold 
at  astonishing  prices  to  that  unfailing  resource  of  news- 
papers, the  "smart  set."  Charges  of  blackmail  flew 
through  the  city.  Official  investigation  had  failed  to  re- 
veal anything  definite  about  the  work,  which  was  said  to 
be  in  process  of  printing.  In  twenty-four  hours  the  new- 
comer from  the  West  appeared  in  the  office  of  a  managing 
editor  with  specimen  pages  of  the  book  itself.  Where  he 
had  got  them  nobody  knew.  No  one  cared.  They  were 
manifestly  genuine,  and  within  two  hours  a  certain  sensa- 
tional newspaper  scored  a  "beat."  At  last  accounts  he 
was  specializing  in  the  same  line,  obtaining  the  unobtain- 
able and  selling  it  where  it  would  bring  the  best  price. 

This  is  one  type  of  free  lance. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  may  be  cited  the  all-around 
scientific  worker  who  came  to  the  metropolis  several  years 
ago,  after  long  experience  in  the  departments  at  Wash- 
ington. Lack  of  influence  there  had  thrown  him  on  the 
world  at  forty.  Accustomed  to  living  on  the  rather  slender 
salary  that  goes  with  a  scientific  position,  and  knowing  no 
other  way  of  getting  a  livelihood,  he  set  out  to  find  in  New 
York  a  place  similar  to  that  he  had  held  in  the  capital.  He 
is  a  man  who  has  followed  the  whole  trend  of  modern 
scientific  progress  as  a  practical  investigator  —  a  deviser 
of  experiments  and  experimental  apparatus,  a  skilled  tech- 
nical draughtsman,  a  writer  on  scientific  subjects,  and  a 
man  of  field  experience  in  surveying  and  research  that  has 
taken  him  all  over  the  world.  New  York  offered  him  noth- 
ing resembling  the  work  he  had  done  in  Washington;  but 


246  THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

in  traveling  about  the  town  among  scientific  and  technical 
publishers  he  got  commissions  to  write  an  article  or  two 
for  an  encyclopedia.  These  led  him  into  encylopedic  illus- 
tration as  well,  and  then  he  took  charge  of  a  whole  section 
of  the  work,  gathering  his  materials  outside,  writing  and 
drawing  at  home,  and  visiting  the  publisher's  office  only 
to  deliver  the  finished  copy.  Encyclopedia  writing  and 
illustration  has  since  become  his  specialty.  His  wide  expe- 
rience and  knowledge  fit  him  to  cope  with  diverse  subjects, 
and  he  earns  an  income  which,  if  not  nearly  so  large  as 
that  of  the  free-lance  reporter,  is  quite  as  satisfactory  as 
his  Washington  salary.  As  soon  as  one  encyclopedia  is 
finished  in  New  York,  another  is  begun,  and  from  pub- 
lisher to  publisher  go  a  group  of  encyclopedic  free-lances, 
who  will  furnish  an  article  on  integral  calculus  or  the  Vedic 
pantheon,  with  diagrams  and  illustrations  —  and  very 
good  articles  at  that. 


II 

Who  but  a  Balzac  will  take  a  census  of  Greater  Grub 
Street,  enumerating  its  aristocrats,  its  well-to-do  obscure 
bourgeois,  its  Bohemians,  its  rakes  and  evil-doers,  its 
artisans  and  struggling  lower  classes?  Among  its  citizens 
are  the  materials  of  a  newer  Comtdie  Humaine.  The  two 
personalities  outlined  above  merely  set  a  vague  intellectual 
boundary  to  this  world.  In  its  many  kinds  and  stations  of 
workers  Grub  Street  is  as  irreducible  as  nebulae.  Its  aris- 
tocracy is  to  be  found  any  time  in  that  "Peerage"  of  Grub 
Street,  the  contents  pages  of  the  better  magazines,  where 
are  arrayed  the  names  of  successful  novelists,  essayists, 
and  short-story  writers,  of  men  and  women  who  deal  with 
specialties  such  as  travel,  historical  studies,  war  corre- 
spondence, nature  interpretation,  sociology,  politics,  and 


THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET  247 

every  other  side  of  life  and  thought;  and  here,  too,  are 
enlisted  their  morganatic  relatives,  the  poets  and  versifiers, 
and  their  showy,  prosperous  kindred,  the  illustrators,  who 
may  be  summoned  from  Grub  Street  to  paint  a  portrait  at 
Newport.  This  peerage  is  real,  for  no  matter  upon  what 
stratum  of  Grub  Street  each  newcomer  may  ultimately 
find  his  level  of  ability,  this  is  the  goal  that  was  aimed  at 
in  the  beginning.  This  is  the  Dream. 

Staid,  careful  burghers  of  the  arts,  producing  their  good, 
dull,  staple  necessities  in  screed  and  picture,  live  about  the 
lesser  magazines,  the  women's  periodicals,  the  trade  and 
technical  press,  the  syndicates  that  supply  "Sunday  stuff'* 
to  newspapers  all  over  the  land,  the  nameless,  mediocre 
publications  that  are  consumed  by  our  rural  population  in 
million  editions.  The  Bohemian  element  is  found  writing 
"on  space"  for  newspapers  this  month,  furnishing  the 
press  articles  of  a  theatre  or  an  actress  the  next,  running 
the  gamut  of  the  lesser  magazines  feverishly,  flitting  hither 
and  thither,  exhausting  its  energies  with  wasteful  rapidity, 
and  never  learning  the  business  tact  and  regularity  that 
keep  the  burgher  in  comfort  and  give  his  name  a  stand-  \ 
ing  at  the  savings  bank.  The  criminal  class  of  Grub  Street  ! 
includes  the  peddler  of  false  news,  the  adapter  of  other 
men's  ideas,  and  the  swindler  who  copies  published  articles  / 
and  pictures  outright,  trusting  to  luck  to  elude  the  editorial  ' 
police.  The  individual  in  this  stratum  has  a  short  career 
and  not  a  merry  one;  but  the  class  persists  with  the  per- 
sistence of  the  parasite.  Grub  Street's  artisans  are  massed 
about  the  advertising  agencies,  producing  the  plausible 
arguments  put  forth  for  the  world  of  merchandise,  and  the 
many  varieties  of  illustration  that  go  with  them;  while  the 
nameless  driftwood  which  floats  about  the  whole  thorough- 
fare includes  no  one  knows  how  many  hundreds  of  aspi- 
rants whose  talents  do  not  suffice  for  any  of  these  classes, 


£48  THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

together  with  the  peddler  of  other  men's  wares  on  com- 
mission, who  perhaps  ekes  out  a  life  by  entering  as  a  super 
at  the  theatres,  the  artists'  models,  both  men  and  women, 
who  pose  in  summer  and  are  away  with  a  theatrical  com- 
pany in  winter,  the  dullard,  the  drone,  the  ne'er-do-well, 
the  palpable  failure.  At  one  end,  Art's  chosen  sons  and 
daughters;  at  the  other,  her  content,  misguided  dupes. 

The  free  lance  is  bred  naturally  in  New  York,  and 
thrives  in  its  atmosphere,  because  the  market  for  his  wares 
is  stable  and  infinitely  varied.  The  demand  he  satisfies 
could  be  appeased  by  no  other  system.  The  very  life  of 
metropolitan  publishing  lies  in  the  search  for  new  men  and 
variety.  Publishers  spend  great  sums  upon  the  winnowing 
machinery  that  threshes  over  what  comes  to  their  editors' 
desks,  and  no  editor  in  the  metropolis  grudges  the  time 
necessary  to  talk  with  those  who  call  in  person  and  have 
ideas  good  enough  to  carry  them  past  his  assistants.  Pub- 
licly, the  editorial  tribe  may  lament  the  many  hours  spent 
yearly  in  this  winnowing  process.  Yet  every  experienced 
editor  in  New  York  has  his  own  story  of  the  stranger, 
uncouth,  unpromising,  unready  of  speech,  who  stole  in  late 
one  afternoon  and  seemed  to  have  almost  nothing  in  him, 
yet  who  afterwards  became  the  prolific  Scribbler  or  the 
great  D'Auber.  Not  an  editor  of  consequence  but  who, 
if  he  knew  that  to-morrow  this  ceaseless  throng  of  free 
lances,  good,  bad,  and  impossible,  had  declared  a  Chinese 
boycott  upon  him  and  would  visit  his  office  no  more,  would 
regard  it  as  the  gravest  of  crises. 

New  York  provides  a  market  so  wide  for  the  wares  of 
the  free  lance  that  almost  anything  in  the  way  of  writing 
or  picture  can  eventually  be  sold,  if  it  is  up  to  a  certain 
standard  of  mediocrity.  A  trained  salesman  familiar  with 
values  in  the  world  of  merchandise  would  consider  this 
market  one  of  the  least  exacting,  most  constant,  and 


THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET  249 

remunerative.  And  it  is  a  market  to  be  regarded,  on  the 
whole,  in  terms  of  merchandise.  Not  genius  or  talent  sets 
the  standards,  but  ordinary  good  workmanship.  Maga- 
zines are  simply  the  apex  of  the  demand  —  that  corner  of 
the  mart  where  payment  is  perhaps  highest  and  the  by- 
product of  reputation  greatest.  For  each  of  the  fortunate 
workers  whose  names  figure  in  the  magazine  peerage,  there 
are  virtually  hundreds  who  produce  for  purchasers  and 
publications  quite  unknown  to  the  general  public,  and 
often  their  incomes  are  equal  to  those  of  the  established 
fiction  writer  or  popular  illustrator. 

New  York  has  eight  Sunday  newspapers  that  buy  matter 
for  then*  own  editions  and  supply  it  in  duplicate  to  other 
Sunday  newspapers  throughout  the  country  under  a  syn- 
dicate arrangement.  Perhaps  an  average  of  five  hundred 
columns  of  articles,  stories,  interviews,  children's  stuff, 
household  and  feminine  gossip,  humor,  verse,  and  miscel- 
lany, with  illustrations,  are  produced  every  week  for  this 
demand  alone;  and  at  least  fifty  per  cent  of  the  yearly 
$150,000  that  represents  its  lowest  value  to  the  producers 
is  paid  to  free-lance  workers.  The  rest  goes  to  men  on 
salary  who  write  Sunday  matter  at  space  rates.  This  item 
is  wholly  distinct  from  the  equally  great  mass  of  Sunday 
stuff  written  for  the  same  papers  by  salaried  men.  Several 
independent  syndicates  also  supply  a  similar  class  of  matter 
to  papers  throughout  the  United  States,  for  both  Sunday 
and  daily  use.  This  syndicate  practice  has,  within  the 
past  ten  years,  made  New  York  a  veritable  journalistic 
provider  for  the  rest  of  the  nation.  The  metropolis  sup- 
plies the  Sunday  reading  of  the  American  people,  largely 
because  it  has  the  resources  of  Grub  Street  to  draw  upon. 
Syndicate  matter  is  cheaper  than  the  provincial  product, 
it  is  true;  but  not  price  alone  is  accountable  for  this  su- 
premacy of  the  syndicate.  By  the  side  of  the  workman- 
is 


250  THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

like  stories,  articles,  skits,  and  pictures  supplied  by  Greater 
Grub  Street,  the  productions  of  a  provincial  newspaper 
staff  on  salary  grow  monotonous  in  their  sameness,  and 
reveal  themselves  by  their  less  skillful  handling. 

The  Sunday-reading  industry  provides  a  market,  not 
only  for  writers  and  artists,  but  also  for  photographers, 
caricaturists,  cartoonists,  makers  of  squibs  and  jokes, 
experts  in  fashions,  devisers  of  puzzles,  men  and  women 
who  sell  ideas  for  novel  Sunday  supplements,  such  as  those 
printed  in  sympathetic  inks,  and  the  like.  It  is  a  pecu- 
liarity of  our  country  worth  noting,  that  all  our  published 
humor  finds  its  outlet  through  the  newspapers.  Though 
England,  Germany,  France,  and  other  countries  have  a 
humorous  press  distinctly  apart,  the  United  States  has 
only  one  humorous  journal  that  may  be  called  national  in 
tone.  An  overwhelming  tide  of  caricature  and  humor 
sweeps  through  our  daily  papers,  but  the  larger  proportion 
is  found  in  the  illustrated  comic  sheets  of  the  leading  New 
York  dailies;  and  these  are  syndicated  in  a  way  that  gives 
them  a  tremendous  national  circulation.  The  Sunday 
comic  sheet,  whatever  one  wishes  to  say  of  its  quality,  was 
built  in  Greater  Grub  Street,  and  there,  to-day,  its  founda- 
tions rest. 

In  Grub  Street,  too,  dwells  the  army  of  workers  who 
furnish  what  might  be  called  the  cellulose  of  our  monthly 
and  weekly  publications  —  interviews,  literary  gossip, 
articles  of  current  news  interest,  matter  interesting  to 
women,  to  children,  to  every  class  and  occupation.  As 
there  are  magazines  for  the  servant  girl  and  clerk,  so  there 
are  magazines  for  the  millionaire  with  a  country  estate, 
the  business  man  studying  system  and  methods,  the 
woman  with  social  or  literary  aspirations,  the  family  plan- 
ning travel  or  a  vacation.  To-day  it  is  a  sort  of  axiom  in 
the  publishing  world  that  a  new  magazine,  to  succeed, 


THE  AMERICAN   GRUB  STREET  251 

must  have  a  new  specialty.  Usually  this  will  be  a  material 
one,  for  our  current  literature  deals  with  things  rather 
than  thought;  it  is  healthy  but  never  top-heavy.  Each  new 
magazine  interest  discovered  is  turned  over  to  Greater 
Grub  Street  for  development,  and  here  it  is  furnished  with 
matter  to  fit  the  new  point  of  view,  drawings  and  photo- 
graphs to  make  it  plain,  editors  to  guide,  and  sometimes  a 
publisher  to  send  it  to  market. 

Then  come,  rank  on  rank,  the  trade  and  technical  period- 
icals, of  which  hundreds  are  issued  weekly  and  monthly  in 
New  York.  These  touch  the  whole  range  of  industry  and 
commerce.  They  deal  with  banking,  law,  medicine,  insur- 
ance, manufacturing,  and  the  progress  of  merchandise  of 
every  kind  through  the  wholesale,  jobbing,  and  retailing 
trades,  with  invention  and  mechanical  science,  with  crude 
staples  and  finished  commodities,  with  the  great  main 
channels  of  production  and  distribution  and  the  little  by- 
corners  of  the  mart.  Some  of  them  are  valuable  publishing 
properties;  more  are  insignificant;  yet  each  has  to  go  to 
press  regularly,  and  all  must  be  filled  with  their  own  par- 
ticular kinds  of  news,  comment,  technical  articles,  and 
pictures.  Theirs  is  a  difficult  point  of  view  for  the  free 
lance,  and  on  this  account  much  of  their  contents  is  written 
by  salaried  editors  and  assistants.  Contributions  come, 
too,  from  engineers,  scientists,  bankers,  attorneys,  physi- 
cians, and  specialists  in  every  part  of  the  country.  Fore- 
men and  superintendents  and  mechanics  in  some  trades 
send  in  roughly  outlined  diagrams  and  descriptions  that 
enable  the  quick-witted  editors  to  see  "how  the  blamed 
thing  works  "  and  write  the  finished  article.  The  American 
trade  press  is  still  in  an  early  stage  of  development  on  its 
literary  side.  It  has  grown  up  largely  within  the  past  two 
decades,  and  still  lacks  literary  workmanship.  To  hun- 
dreds of  free-lance  workers  this  field  is  now  either  unknown 


252  THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

or  underestimated.  Yet  year  after  year  men  disappear 
from  Park  Row  and  the  round  of  Magazinedom,  to  be 
found,  if  any  one  would  take  the  trouble  to  look  them  up, 
among  the  trade  journals.  Some  of  the  great  properties  in 
this  class  belong  to  journalists  who  saw  an  opportunity  a 
decade  ago,  and  grasped  it. 


in 

The  trade  journals  lead  directly  into  the  field  of  adver- 
tising, which  has  grown  into  a  phenomenal  outlet  for  free 
lance  energies  in  the  past  ten  years,  and  is  still  growing  at 
a  rate  that  promises  to  make  it  the  dominant  market  of 
Grub  Street.  A  glance  through  the  advertising  sections 
of  the  seventy-five  or  more  monthly  and  weekly  maga- 
zines published  in  New  York  reveals  only  a  fraction  of  this 
demand,  for  a  mass  of  writing  and  illustration  many  times 
greater  is  produced  for  catalogues,  booklets,  folders,  cir- 
culars, advertising  in  the  religious,  agricultural,  and  trade 
press,  and  other  purposes.  Much  of  it  is  the  work  of  men 
on  salary,  yet  advertising  takes  so  many  ingenious  forms 
and  is  so  constantly  striving  for  the  novel  and  excellent, 
that  almost  every  writer  and  illustrator  of  prominence 
receives  in  the  course  of  the  year  commissions  for  special 
advertising  work,  and  fat  commissions,  too.  Often  the 
fine  drawing  one  sees  as  the  centre  of  attraction  in  a  maga- 
zine advertisement  is  the  work  of  a  man  or  woman  of 
reputation  among  the  readers  of  magazines,  delivered  with 
the  understanding  that  it  is  to  be  published  unsigned. 

The  advertising  demand  is  divided  into  two  classes  — 
that  represented  by  business  firms  which  prepare  their  own 
publicity,  and  that  for  the  advertising  agencies  which  pre- 
pare and  forward  to  periodicals  the  advertising  of  many 
business  houses,  receiving  for  their  service  a  commission 


THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET  253 

from  the  publishers.  It  is  among  the  latter  especially  that 
the  free  lance  finds  his  market,  for  the  agencies  handle  a 
varied  mass  of  work  and  are  continually  calling  in  men 
who  can  furnish  fresh  ideas.  One  of  the  leading  advertis- 
ing agencies  keeps  in  a  great  file  the  names  and  addresses 
of  several  hundred  free-lance  workers  —  writers,  sculp- 
tors, illustrators,  portrait  painters,  translators,  news  and 
illustrating  photographers,  fashion  designers,  authorities 
in  silver  and  virtu,  book-reviewers,  journalists  with  such 
specialties  as  sports,  social  news,  and  the  markets.  Each 
is  likely  to  be  called  on  for  something  in  his  particular  line 
as  occasions  arise. 

This  concern,  for  example,  may  receive  a  commission  to 
furnish  a  handsomely  bound  miniature  book  on  servants' 
liveries  for  a  clothing  manufacturer,  or  a  history  of  silver 
plate  to  be  privately  printed  and  distributed  among  the 
patrons  of  a  great  jewelry  house.  For  a  simple  folder  to 
advertise  a  brand  of  whiskey,  perhaps,  the  sporting  editor 
of  a  leading  daily  newspaper  is  asked  to  compile  informa- 
tion about  international  yacht-racing.  From  Union  Square 
may  be  seen  a  large  wall,  upon  which  is  painted  a  quaint 
landscape  of  gigantic  proportions.  It  is  a  bit  of  thor- 
oughly artistic  design,  fitting  into  the  general  color  scheme 
of  the  square,  and  its  attractiveness  gives  it  minor  adver- 
tising value  for  the  firm  that  has  taken  an  original  way  of 
masking  a  blank  wall.  This  decoration  was  painted  from 
a  small  design,  made  for  the  above  advertising  agency  by 
a  painter  of  prominence.  The  same  agency,  in  compiling 
a  catalogue  of  cash  registers  some  time  ago,  referred  to 
their  utilitarian  ugliness  of  design.  The  cash  register  man- 
ufacturers protested  that  these  were  the  best  designs  they 
had  been  able  to  make,  whereupon  the  advertising  agency 
commissioned  four  sculptors,  who  elaborated  dainty  cash- 


264  THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

register  cases  in  the  art  nouveau  manner,  for  installation  in 
cafes,  milliners'  shops,  and  other  fine  establishments. 

Advertising  requires  versatility  of  a  high  order.  A  news- 
paper writer,  so  long  as  he  makes  his  articles  interesting 
to  the  widest  public,  is  not  required  to  give  too  strict  atten- 
tion to  technicalities  —  he  writes  upon  this  subject  to-day 
and  upon  one  at  the  opposite  pole  to-morrow.  A  writer 
for  a  trade  journal,  on  the  other  hand,  need  not  give  pains 
to  human  interest  if  his  technical  grasp  of  the  iron  market, 
the  haberdashery  trade,  or  the  essentials  of  machine-shop 
practice  is  sure.  Moreover,  each  year's  experience  in 
writing  for  a  trade  journal  adds  to  his  knowledge  of  its  sub- 
ject and  makes  his  work  so  much  the  surer  and  simpler. 
But  the  writer  of  advertising  must  combine  human  inter- 
est with  strict  accuracy;  his  subject  is  constantly  changing, 
unless  he  is  a  specialist  in  a  certain  line,  taking  advertising 
commissions  at  intervals.  To-day  he  studies  the  methods 
of  making  cigars  and  the  many  different  kinds  of  tobacco 
that  enter  therein;  to-morrow  he  writes  a  monograph  on 
enameled  tin  cans,  investigating  the  processes  of  making 
them  in  the  factory;  and  the  day  after  that  his  topic  may 
be  breakfast  foods,  taking  him  into  investigations  of  starch, 
gluten,  digestive  functions,  diet  and  health,  and  setting 
him  upon  a  weary  hunt  for  synonyms  to  describe  the  "rich 
nutty  flavor"  that  all  breakfast  foods  are  said  to  have. 
All  the  illustrative  work  of  an  advertising  artist  must  be 
so  true  to  detail  that  it  will  pass  the  eyes  of  men  who  spend 
their  lives  making  the  things  he  pictures.  The  Camusots 
and  Matifats  no  longer  provide  costly  orgies  for  Grub 
Street,  sitting  by  meekly  to  enjoy  the  flow  of  wit  and 
banter.  They  now  employ  criticism  in  moulding  their 
literature  of  business.  It  was  one  of  them  who,  difficult  to 
please  in  circulars,  looked  over  the  manuscript  submitted 
by  an  advertising  free  lance  with  more  approval  than  was 


THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET  255 

his  custom.  "This  is  not  bad/'  he  commented;  "not  bad 
at  all  —  and  yet  —  I  have  seen  all  these  words  used 
before." 

An  interesting  new  development  of  advertising  is  the 
business  periodical,  a  journal  published  by  a  large  manufac-  ; 
turer,  usually,  and  sent  out  monthly  to  retail  agents  or  his 
consuming  public.  In  its  pages  are  printed  articles  about 
the  manufacturer's  product,  descriptions  of  its  industrial 
processes,  news  of  the  trade,  and  miscellany.  Many  of 
these  periodicals  are  extremely  interesting  for  themselves. 
There  must  be  dozens  of  them  in  New  York  —  none  of  the 
newspaper  directories  list  them.  Writers  who  are  not 
especially  familiar  with  the  product  with  which  they  deal 
often  furnish  a  style  of  matter  for  them  that  is  valued  for 
its  fresh  point  of  view  and  freedom  from  trade  and  tech- 
nical phraseology.  These  publications  range  from  journals 
of  a  dozen  pages,  issued  on  the  "every  little  while"  plan 
for  the  retail  trade  of  a  rubber  hose  manufacturer,  to  the 
monthly  magazine  which  a  stocking  jobber  mails  to  thou- 
sands of  youngsters  all  over  the  land  to  keep  them  loyal 
to  his  goods. 

This,  then,  is  the  market  in  its  main  outlines.  But  a 
mass  of  detail  has  been  eliminated.  In  groups  large  and 
small  there  are  the  poster  artists  who  work  for  theatrical 
managers  and  lithographers;  the  strange,  obscure  folk  who 
write  the  subterranean  dime-novel  stories  of  boyhood;  the 
throngs  of  models  who  go  from  studio  to  studio,  posing  at 
the  uniform  rate  of  fifty  cents  an  hour  whether  they  work 
constantly  or  seldom;  the  engravers  who  have  made  an 
art  of  retouching  half-tone  plates ;  the  great  body  of  craf ts- 
and-arts  workers  which  has  sprung  up  in  the  past  five  years 
and  which  leads  the  free-lance  life  in  studios,  selling  pot- 
tery, decorated  china,  wood,  and  metal  work  to  rich  pa- 
trons; the  serious  painters  whose  work  is  found  in  exhibi- 


256  THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

tions,  and  the  despised  "buckeye"  painter  who  paints  for 
the  department  stores  and  cheap  picture  shops;  the  etchers, 
the  portrait  painters,  and  the  "  spotknockers "  who  lay  in 
the  tones  of  the  crude  "crayon  portrait"  for  popular  con- 
sumption— these  and  a  multitude  of  others  inhabit  Greater 
Grub  Street,  knowing  no  regularity  of  employment,  of 
hours,  or  of  income. 

IV 

While  its  opportunities  are  without  conceivable  limita- 
tion, Grub  Street  is  not  a  thoroughfare  littered  with  cur- 
rency, but  is  paved  with  cobblestones  as  hard  as  any  along 
the  other  main  avenues  of  New  York's  life  and  energy. 
The  Great  Man  of  the  Provinces,  landing  at  Cortlandt  or 
Twenty-third  Street  after  an  apprenticeship  at  newspaper 
work  in  a  minor  city,  steps  into  a  world  strangely  different 
from  the  one  he  has  known.  For,  just  to  be  a  police  re- 
porter elsewhere  is  to  be  a  journalist,  and  journalism  is  the 
same  as  literature,  and  literature  is  honorable,  and  a  little 
mysterious,  and  altogether  different  from  the  management 
of  a  stove  foundry,  or  the  proprietorship  of  a  grocery  house, 
or  any  other  of  the  overwhelmingly  material  things  that 
make  up  American  life.  Times  have  not  greatly  changed 
since  Lucien  de  Rubempre  was  the  lion  of  Madame  de 
Bargeton's  salon  at  AngoulSme,  and  this  is  a  matter  they 
seem  to  have  ordered  no  better  in  provincial  France.  To 
be  a  writer  or  artist  of  any  calibre  elsewhere  breeds  a  form 
of  homage  and  curiosity  and  a  certain  sure  social  standing. 
But  New  York  strikes  a  chill  over  the  Great  Man  of  the 
Provinces,  because  it  is  nothing  at  all  curious  or  extraordi- 
nary for  one  to  write  or  draw  in  a  community  where  thou- 
sands live  by  these  pursuits.  They  carry  no  homage  or 
social  standing  on  their  face,  and  the  editorial  world  is  even 
studied  in  its  uncongeniality  toward  the  newcomer,  be- 


THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET  257 

cause  he  is  so  fearfully  likely  to  prove  one  of  the  ninety- 
nine  in  every  hundred  aspirants  who  cannot  draw  or  write 
well  enough.  The  ratio  that  holds  in  the  mass  of  impossi- 
ble manuscript  and  sketches  that  pours  into  every  editorial 
office  is  also  the  ratio  of  the  living  denizens  of  Grub  Street. 
The  Great  Man  of  the  Provinces  is  received  on  the  as- 
sumption that  he  is  unavailable,  with  thanks,  and  the  hope 
that  he  will  not  consider  this  a  reflection  upon  his  literary 
or  artistic  merit. 

So  he  finds  himself  altogether  at  sea  for  a  while.  No 
Latin  Quarter  welcomes  him,  for  this  community  has  no 
centre.  His  estimates  of  magazine  values,  formed  at  a 
distance,  are  quickly  altered.  Many  lines  of  work  he  had 
never  dreamed  of,  and  channels  for  selling  it,  come  to  light 
day  by  day.  To  pass  the  building  where  even  Munsey's 
is  published  gives  him  a  thrill  the  first  time;  yet  after  a 
few  months  in  New  York  he  finds  that  the  great  magazines, 
instead  of  being  nearer,  are  really  farther  away  than  they 
were  in  the  provinces.  Of  the  other  workers  he  meets,  few 
aspire  to  them,  while  of  this  few  only  a  fraction  get  into 
their  pages.  He  calls  on  editors,  perhaps,  and  finds  them 
a  strange,  non-committal  caste,  talking  very  much  like 
their  own  rejection  slips.  No  editor  will  definitely  give 
him  a  commission,  even  if  he  submits  an  idea  that  seems 
good,  but  can  at  most  be  brought  to  admit  under  pressure 
that,  if  the  Great  Man  were  to  find  himself  in  that  neigh- 
borhood with  the  idea  all  worked  up,  the  editor  might  be 
interested  in  seeing  it,  perhaps  even  reading  it  —  yet  he 
must  not  understand  this  as  in  any  way  binding  .  .  . 
the  magazine  is  very  full  just  at  present  .  .  .  had  n't  he 
better  try  the  newspapers,  now?  For  there  are  more  blanks 
than  prizes  walking  the  Grub  Street  paving,  and  persons 
of  unsound  minds  have  been  known  to  take  to  literature 
as  a  last  resort,  and  the  most  dangerous  person  to  the 


258  THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

editor  is  not  a  rejected  contributor  at  all,  but  one  who  has 
been  accepted  once  and  sees  a  gleam  of  a  chance  that  he 
may  be  again. 

If  the  Great  Man  really  has  "stuff"  in  him,  he  stops 
calling  on  editors  and  submits  his  offerings  by  mail.  Even 
if  he  attains  print  in  a  worthy  magazine,  he  may  work  a 
year  without  seeing  its  notable  contributors,  or  its  minor 
ones,  or  its  handmaidens,  or  even  its  office-boy.  Two 
men  jostled  one  another  on  Park  Row  one  morning  as  they 
were  about  to  enter  the  same  newspaper  building,  apolo- 
gized, and  got  into  the  elevator  together.  There  a  third 
introduced  them,  when  it  turned  out  that  one  had  been 
illustrating  the  work  of  the  other  for  two  years,  and  each 
had  wished  to  know  the  other,  but  never  got  around  to  it. 
An  individual  circle  of  friends  is  easily  formed  in  Grub 
Street,  but  the  community  as  a  whole  lives  far  and  wide 
and  has  no  coherence. 

What  ability  or  skill  the  Great  Man  brought  from  his 
province  may  be  only  the  foundation  for  real  work.  There 
will  surely  be  extensive  revising  of  ideals  and  methods.  A 
story  is  told  of  a  poet  who  came  to  the  metropolis  with  a 
completed  epic.  This  found  no  acceptance,  so  after  curs- 
ing the  stupidity  of  the  public  and  the  publishers,  he  took 
to  writing  "Sunday  stuff."  Soon  the  matter-of-fact  atti- 
tude of  the  workers  around  him,  with  the  practical  view 
of  the  market  he  acquired,  led  him  to  doubt  the  literary 
value  of  the  work  he  had  done  in  the  sentimental  atmos- 
phere of  his  native  place.  Presently  a  commission  to  write 
a  column  of  humor  a  week  came  to  him,  and  he  cut  his 
epic  into  short  lengths,  tacked  a  squib  on  each  fragment, 
and  eventually  succeeded  in  printing  it  all  as  humor,  at  a 
price  many  times  larger  than  the  historic  one  brought  by 
Paradise  Lost.  Another  newcomer  brought  unsalable  plays 
and  high  notions  of  the  austerity  of  the  artistic  vocation. 


THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET  259 

Three  months  after  his  arrival  he  was  delighted  to  get  a 
commission  to  write  the  handbook  a  utilitarian  publisher 
proposed  to  sell  to  visitors  seeing  the  metropolis.  This 
commission  not  only  brought  a  fair  payment  for  the  manu- 
script on  delivery,  but  involved  a  vital  secondary  consid- 
eration. The  title  of  the  work  was  "Where  to  Eat  in  New 
York,"  and  its  preparation  made  it  necessary  for  the 
author  to  dine  each  evening  for  a  month  in  a  different  cafe 
at  the  proprietor's  expense. 

This  practical  atmosphere  of  Grub  Street  eventually 
makes  for  development  in  the  writer  or  artist  who  has 
talent.  It  is  an  atmosphere  suited  to  work,  for  the  worker 
is  left  alone  in  the  solitude  of  the  multitude.  False  ideals 
and  sentimentality  fade  from  his  life,  and  his  style  takes 
on  directness  and  vigor.  Greater  Grub  Street  is  not  given 
to  reviling  the  public  for  lack  of  ideals  or  appreciation. 
The  free  lance's  contact  with  the  real  literary  market,  day 
after  day,  teaches  him  that,  as  soon  as  he  can  produce  the 
manuscript  of  the  great  American  novel,  there  are  editors 
who  may  be  trusted  to  perceive  its  merit,  and  publishers 
ready  to  buy. 


This  free-lance  community  of  the  metropolis  is  housed 
all  over  Manhattan  Island,  as  well  as  in  the  suburbs  and 
adjacent  country  for  a  hundred  miles  or  more  around.  An 
amusing  census  of  joke-writers  and  humorists  was  made 
not  long  ago  by  a  little  journal  which  a  New  Jersey  rail- 
road publishes  in  the  interest  of  its  suburban  passenger 
traffic.  It  was  shown,  by  actual  names  and  places  of 
residence,  that  more  than  three  fourths  of  the  writers  who 
keep  the  suburban  joke  alive  live  in  Suburbia  themselves. 

New  York  has  no  Latin  Quarter.  As  her  publications 
are  scattered  over  the  city  from  Park  Row  to  Forty-second 


260  THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

Street,  so  the  dwellings  of  free-lance  workers  are  found 
everywhere  above  Washington  Square.  There  are  numer- 
ous centres,  however.  Washington  Square  is  one  for  news- 
paper men  and  women,  and  in  its  boarding-houses  and 
apartment  hotels  are  also  found  many  artists  who  labor  in 
studios  near  by.  Tenth  Street,  between  Broadway  and 
Sixth  Avenue,  has  a  few  studios  remaining,  surrounded  by 
the  rising  tide  of  the  wholesale  clothing  trade,  chief  among 
them  being  the  Fleischmann  Building,  next  Grace  Church, 
and  the  old  studio  building  near  Sixth  Avenue.  More  old 
studios  are  found  in  Fourteenth  Street;  and  around  Union 
Square  the  new  skyscrapers  house  a  prosperous  class  of 
illustrators  who  do  not  follow  the  practice  of  living  with 
their  work.  On  the  south  side  of  Twenty- third  Street, 
from  Broadway  to  Fourth  Avenue,  is  a  row  of  old-time 
studios,  and  pretty  much  the  whole  gridiron  of  cross  streets 
between  Union  and  Madison  squares  has  others,  old  and 
new.  Thence,  Grub  Street  proceeds  steadily  uptown  until, 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Central  Park,  it  may  be  said  to  have 
arrived. 

Look  over  the  roofs  in  any  of  these  districts  and  the  top- 
light  hoods  may  be  seen,  always  facing  north,  as  though 
great  works  were  expected  from  that  point  of  the  compass. 
Grub  Street  is  the  top  layer  of  New  York,  and  dislikes  to 
be  far  from  the  roof.  A  studio  that  has  been  inhabited 
by  a  succession  of  artists  and  writers  for  twenty,  thirty, 
forty  years,  may  be  tenanted  to-day  by  a  picturesque 
young  man  in  slouch  hat,  loose  neckerchief,  and  paint- 
flecked  clothes,  who  eats  about  at  cheap  cafes,  and  sleeps 
on  a  cot  that  in  daytime  serves  as  a  lounge  under  its  dusty 
Oriental  canopy.  The  latter  ornament  is  the  unfailing 
mark  of  that  kind  of  studio,  and  with  it  go,  in  some  com- 
bination, a  Japanese  umbrella  and  a  fish-net.  This  young 
man  makes  advertising  pictures,  perhaps,  or  puts  the 


THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET  261 

frames  around  the  half-tone  illustrations  for  a  Sunday 
newspaper.  By  that  he  lives,  and  for  his  present  fame 
draws  occasional  "comics"  for  Life.  But  with  an  eye  to 
Immortality,  he  paints,  so  that  there  are  always  sketching 
trips  to  be  made,  and  colors  to  putter  with,  and  art,  sacred 
art,  to  talk  of  in  the  terms  of  the  technician.  Or  such  an 
old  studio  may  shelter  some  forlorn  spinster  who  ekes  out 
a  timid  existence  by  painting  dinner  cards  or  the  innum- 
erable whatnots  produced  and  sold  by  her  class  in  Grub 
Street. 

In  the  newer  studios  are  found  two  methods  of  working. 
Prosperous  illustrators,  writers,  and  teachers  may  prefer 
a  studio  in  an  office  building,  where  no  one  is  permitted 
to  pass  the  night,  conducting  their  affairs  with  the  aid  of 
a  stenographer  and  an  office  boy.  Others  live  and  work  in 
the  newer  studios  that  have  been  built  above  Twenty- 
third  Street  in  the  past  decade.  Few  of  the  traditions  of 
Bohemia  are  preserved  by  successful  men  and  women. 
The  young  man  of  the  Sunday  supplement,  and  the 
amateur  dauber,  once  he  succeeds  as  a  magazine  illustra- 
tor, drops  his  slouch  hat,  becomes  conventional  in  dress, 
and  ceases  to  imitate  outwardly  an  artistic  era  that  is 
past.  Success  brings  him  in  contact  with  persons  of  truer 
tastes,  and  he  changes  to  match  his  new  environment. 
This  is  so  fundamental  in  Grub  Street  that  the  ability  of 
any  of  its  denizens  may  be  gauged  by  the  editor's  experi- 
enced eye;  the  less  a  given  individual  dresses  like  the  tra- 
ditional artist  or  writer  of  the  Parisian  Latin  Quarter,  the 
nearer  he  is,  probably,  to  being  one. 

Women  make  up  a  large  proportion  of  the  dwellers  in 
Grub  Street,  and  its  open  market,  holding  to  no  distinc- 
tions of  sex  in  payment  for  acceptable  work,  is  in  their 
favor.  Any  of  the  individual  markets  offers  a  fair  field  for 


262  THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET 

their  work,  and  in  most  of  them  the  feminine  product  is 
sought  as  a  foil  to  the  staple  masculine. 

What  is  the  average  Grub  Street  income?  That  would 
be  difficult  to  know,  for  the  free  lance,  as  a  rule,  keeps  no 
cash-book.  Many  workers  exist  on  earnings  no  larger  than 
those  of  a  country  clergyman,  viewed  comparatively  from 
the  standpoint  of  expenses,  and  among  them  are  men  and 
women  of  real  ability.  Given  the  magic  of  business  tact, 
they  might  soon  double  their  earnings.  Business  ability 
is  the  secret  of  monetary  success  in  Greater  Grub  Street. 
One  must  know  where  to  sell,  and  also  what  to  produce. 
It  pays  to  aim  high  and  get  into  the  currents  of  the  best 
demand,  where  prices  are  better,  terms  fairer,  and  com- 
petition an  absolute  nullity.  Even  the  cheapest  magazines 
and  newspapers  pay  well  when  the  free  lance  knows  how 
to  produce  for  them.  Hundreds  of  workers  are  ill  paid 
because  they  have  not  the  instinct  of  the  compiler.  Scis- 
sors are  mightier  than  the  pen  in  this  material  market; 
with  them  the  skillful  ones  write  original  articles  and  books 
—  various  information  brought  together  in  a  new  focus. 

While  untold  thousands  of  impossible  articles  drift 
about  the  editorial  offices,  these  editors  are  looking  for 
what  they  cannot  often  describe.  A  successful  worker  in 
Grub  Street  divines  this  need  and  submits  the  thing  itself. 
Often  the  need  is  most  tangible.  For  two  weeks  after  the 
Martinique  disaster  the  newspapers  and  syndicates  were 
hunting  articles  about  volcanoes  —  not  profound  treatises, 
but  ordinary  workmanlike  accounts  such  as  could  be  tried 
out  of  any  encyclopedia.  Yet  hundreds  of  workers,  any 
one  of  whom  might  have  compiled  the  needed  articles, 
continued  to  send  in  compositions  dealing  with  abstract 
subjects,  things  far  from  life  and  events,  and  were  turned 
down  in  the  regular  routine.  Only  a  small  proportion  of 
free  lances  ever  become  successful,  but  those  who  do, 


THE  AMERICAN  GRUB  STREET  263 

achieve  success  by  attention  to  demand,  with  the  conse- 
quence that  most  of  their  work  is  sold  before  it  is  written. 

This  community  is  perhaps  the  most  diversified  to  be 
found  in  a  national  centre  of  thought  and  energy.  Paris, 
London,  Munich,  Vienna,  Rome  —  each  has  the  artistic 
tradition  and  atmosphere,  coming  down  through  the  cen- 
turies. But  this  Grub  Street  of  the  new  world  is  wholly 
material,  — a  "boom  town"  of  the  arts,  — embodying  in 
its  brain  and  heart  only  prospects,  hopes.  Its  artistic 
rating  is  written  plainly  in  our  current  literature.  There 
is  real  artistic  struggle  and  aspiration  in  it  all,  undoubt- 
edly, but  not  enough  to  sweeten  the  mass. 

Greater  Grub  Street  is  utilitarian.  That  which  propels 
it  is  not  Art,  but  Advertising  —  not  Clio  or  Calliope,  but 
Circulation. 


JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER 

BY  CHARLES  MOREAU  HARGER 


IN  a  recent  discussion  with  a  successful  business  man 
concerning  an  occupation  for  the  business  man's  son,  a 
college  graduate,  some  one  suggested:  "Set  him  up  with 
a  newspaper.  He  likes  the  work  and  is  capable  of  suc- 
cess." 

"Nothing  in  it,"  was  the  prompt  reply.  "He  can  make 
more  money  with  a  clothing  store,  have  less  worry  and 
annoyance,  and  possess  the  respect  of  more  persons." 

This  response  typifies  the  opinion  of  many  fathers  re- 
garding a  newspaper  career.  It  is  especially  common  to 
the  business  man  in  the  rural  and  semi-rural  sections.  The 
dry-goods  merchant  who  has  a  stock  worth  twenty  thou- 
sand dollars,  and  makes  a  profit  of  from  three  thousand 
dollars  to  five  thousand  dollars  a  year,  realizes  that  the 
editor's  possessions  are  meagre,  and  believes  his  income 
limited.  He  likewise  hears  complaints  and  criticisms  of 
the  paper.  Comparing  his  own  placid  money-making 
course  with  what  he  assumes  to  be  the  stormy  and  un- 
profitable struggle  of  the  publisher,  he  considers  the  print- 
ing business  an  inferior  occupation. 

For  this  view  the  old-time  editor  is  largely  responsible. 
For  decades  it  was  his  pride  to  make  constant  reference  to 
his  poverty-stricken  condition,  to  beg  subscribers  to  bring 
cord-wood  and  potatoes  on  subscription,  to  glorify  as  a 
philanthropist  the  farmer  who  "called  to-day  and  dropped 
a  dollar  in  the  till."  The  poor-editor  joke  is  as  well  estab- 
lished as  the  mother-in-law  joke  or  the  lover-and-angry- 


JOTJRNALISM  AS  A  CAREER  265 

father  joke,  and  about  as  unwarranted;  yet  it  has  built  up 
a  sentiment,  false  in  fact  and  suggestion,  often  accepted 
as  truth. 

To  the  younger  generation,  journalism  presents  another 
aspect.  The  fascination  of  doing  things,  of  being  in  the 
forefront  of  the  world's  activities,  appeals  to  young  men 
and  young  women  of  spirit.  Few  are  they  who  do  not 
consider  themselves  qualified  to  succeed  should  they  choose 
this  profession.  To  the  layman  it  seems  so  easy  and  so 
pleasant  to  write  the  news  and  comment  of  the  day,  to 
occupy  a  seat  on  the  stage  at  public  meetings,  to  pass  the 
fire-lines  unquestioned. 

Not  until  the  first  piece  of  copy  is  handed  in  does  the 
beginner  comprehend  the  magnitude  of  his  task  or  the 
demand  made  upon  him  for  technical  skill.  When  he  sees 
the  editor  slash,  blue-pencil,  and  rearrange  his  story,  he 
appreciates  how  much  he  has  yet  to  learn.  Of  this  he  was 
ignorant  in  his  high  school  and  his  college  days,  and  he  was 
confident  of  his  ability.  An  expression  of  choice  of  a  life- 
work  by  the  freshman  class  of  a  college  or  university  will 
give  a  large  showing  for  journalism;  in  the  senior  year  it 
will  fall  to  a  minor  figure,  not  more  than  from  three  to 
seven  per  cent  of  the  whole.  By  that  period  the  students 
have  learned  some  things  concerning  life,  and  have  de- 
cided, either  because  of  temperament,  or  as  did  the  busi- 
ness man  for  his  son,  for  some  other  profession. 

To  those  who  choose  it  deliberately  as  a  life-work,  ob- 
taining a  position  presents  as  many  difficulties  as  it  does 
in  any  other  profession.  The  old-time  plan  by  which  the 
beginner  began  as  "devil,"  sweeping  out  the  office,  clean- 
ing the  presses,  and  finally  rising  to  be  compositor  and 
writer,  is  in  these  days  of  specialization  out  of  date.  The 
newspaper  business  has  as  distinct  departments  as  a  de- 
partment store.  While  a  full  knowledge  of  every  part  of 

19 


366  JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER 

the  workings  of  the  office  is  unquestionably  valuable,  the 
eager  aspirant  finds  time  too  limited  to  serve  a  long  appren- 
ticeship at  the  mechanical  end  in  order  to  prepare  himself 
for  the  writing-room. 

Hence  we  find  the  newspaper  worker  seeking  a  new 
preparation.  He  strives  for  a  broad  knowledge,  rather 
than  mechanical  training,  and  it  is  from  such  preparation 
that  he  enters  the  newspaper  office  with  the  best  chances 
of  success.  Once  the  college  man  in  the  newspaper  office 
was  a  joke.  His  sophomoric  style  was  the  object  of  sneers 
and  jeers  from  the  men  who  had  been  trained  in  the  school 
of  actual  practice  at  the  desk.  To-day  few  editors  hold  to 
the  idea  that  there  can  be  no  special  preparation  worth 
while  outside  the  office,  just  as  you  find  few  farmers  sneer- 
ing at  the  work  of  agricultural  colleges.  It  is  not  uncom- 
mon to  find  the  staff  of  a  great  newspaper  composed  largely 
of  college  men,  and  when  a  new  man  is  sought  for  the 
writing  force  it  is  usually  one  with  a  college  degree  who 
obtains  the  place.  It  is  recognized  that  the  ability  to  think 
clearly,  to  write  understandable  English,  and  to  know  the 
big  facts  of  the  world  and  its  doings,  are  essential,  and  that 
college  training  fits  the  young  man  of  brains  for  this.  Such 
faults  as  may  have  been  acquired  can  easily  be  corrected. 

Along  with  the  tendency  toward  specialization  in  other 
directions,  colleges  and  universities  have  established 
schools  or  departments  of  journalism  in  which  they  seek 
to  assist  those  students  who  desire  to  follow  that  career. 
It  is  not  a  jVst  criticism  of  such  efforts  to  say,  as  some 
editors  have  said,  that  it  is  impossible  to  give  practical 
experience  outside  a  newspaper  office.  Such  an  opinion 
implies  that  news  and  comment  can  be  written  only  within 
sound  of  a  printing-press;  yet  a  vast  deal  of  actual  every- 
day work  on  the  papers  themselves  is  done  by  persons  out- 
side the  office. 


JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER  267 

About  twenty  colleges  and  universities,  chiefly  in  the 
Middle  West  and  Northwest,  have  established  such  schools. 
They  range  in  then*  curriculum  from  courses  of  lectures  by 
newspaper  men  continued  through  a  part  of  the  four-years' 
course,  to  complete  schools  with  a  systematic  course  of 
study  comprehending  general  culture,  history,  and  science, 
with  actual  work  on  a  daily  paper  published  by  the  stu- 
dents themselves,  on  which,  under  the  guidance  of  an 
experienced  newspaper  man,  they  fill  creditably  every  de- 
partment and  assist  in  the  final  make-up  of  the  publica- 
tion. They  even  gain  a  fair  comprehension  of  the  workings 
of  linotypes,  presses,  and  the  details  of  composition,  with- 
out attempting  to  attain  such  hand-skill  as  to  make  them 
eligible  to  positions  in  the  mechanical  department. 

These  students,  in  addition  to  possessing  the  broad  cul- 
ture that  comes  with  a  college  degree,  know  how  to  write 
a  "story,"  how  to  frame  a  headline,  how  to  construct  edi- 
torial comment,  and  they  certainly  enter  the  newspaper  of- 
fice lacking  the  crudeness  manifested  by  those  who  have  all 
the  details  of  newspaper  style  to  learn.  This  sort  of  school- 
ing does  not  make  newspaper  men  of  the  unfit,  but  to  the 
fit  it  gives  a  preparation  that  saves  them  much  time  in  at- 
taining positions  of  value.  That  a  course  of  this  kind  will 
become  an  integral  part  of  many  more  colleges  is  probable. 

In  these  schools  some  of  the  most  capable  students  enroll. 
They  are  the  young  men  and  young  women  of  literary 
tastes  and  keen  ambitions.  They  are  as  able  as  the  stu- 
dents who  elect  law,  or  science,  or  engineering.  From 
months  of  daily  work  in  a  class-room  fitted  up  like  the  city 
room  of  a  great  newspaper,  with  definite  news-assignments 
and  tasks  that  cover  the  whole  field  of  writing  for  the  press, 
they  can  scarcely  fail  to  absorb  some  of  the  newspaper 
spirit,  and  graduate  with  a  fairly  definite  idea  of  what  is 
to  be  required  of  them. 


268  JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER 


Then  there  comes  the  question,  where  shall  the  start  be 
made?  Is  it  best  to  begin  on  the  small  paper  and  work 
toward  metropolitan  journalism?  or  to  seek  a  reporter's 
place  on  the  city  daily  and  work  for  advancement? 

Something  is  to  be  said  for  the  latter  course.  The  editor 
of  one  of  the  leading  New  York  dailies  remarked  the  other 
day:  "The  man  who  begins  in  New  York,  and  stays  with 
it,  rises  if  he  be  capable.  Changes  in  the  staffs  are  fre- 
quent, and  in  a  half-dozen  years  he  finds  himself  well  up 
the  ladder.  It  takes  him  about  that  long  to  gain  a  good 
place  in  a  country  town,  and  then  if  he  goes  to  the  city  he 
must  begin  at  the  bottom  with  much  time  wasted."  This 
is,  however,  not  the  essential  argument. 

Who  is  the  provincial  newspaper  man?  Where  is  found 
the  broadest  development,  the  largest  conception  of  jour- 
nalism? To  the  beginner  the  vision  is  not  clear.  If  he 
asks  the  busy  reporter,  the  nervous  special  writer  on  a 
metropolitan  journal,  he  gets  this  reply:  "If  I  could  only 
own  a  good  country  paper  and  be  my  own  master ! "  Then, 
turning  to  the  country  editor,  he  is  told:  "It  is  dull  in  the 
country  town  —  if  I  could  get  a  place  on  a  city  journal 
where  things  are  happening!"  Each  can  give  reasons  for 
his  ambition,  and  each  has  from  his  experience  and  obser- 
vation formed  an  ex  parte  opinion.  Curiously,  in  view  of 
the  glamour  that  surrounds  the  city  worker,  and  the  pre- 
sumption that  he  has  attained  the  fullest  possible  equip- 
ment for  the  newspaper  field,  he  is  less  likely  to  succeed 
with  satisfaction  to  himself  on  a  country  paper  than  is  the 
country  editor  who  finds  a  place  in  the  city. 

The  really  provincial  journalist,  the  worker  whose  scope 
and  ideals  are  most  limited,  is  often  he  who  has  spent  years 
as  a  part  of  a  great  newspaper-making  machine.  Fre- 


JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER  269 

quently,  when  transplanted  to  what  he  considers  a  nar- 
rower field,  which  is  actually  one  of  wider  demands,  he 
fails  in  complete  efficiency.  The  province  of  the  city  paper 
is  one  of  news-selection.  Out  of  the  vast  skein  of  the  day's 
happenings  what  shall  it  select?  More  "copy"  is  thrown 
away  than  is  used.  The  New  York  Sun  is  written  as  defi- 
nitely for  a  given  constituency  as  is  a  technical  journal. 
Out  of  the  day's  news  it  gives  prominence  to  that  which 
fits  into  its  scheme  of  treatment,  and  there  is  so  much 
news  that  it  can  fill  its  columns  with  interesting  material, 
yet  leave  untouched  a  myriad  of  events.  The  New  York 
Evening  Post  appeals  to  another  constituency,  and  is  made 
accordingly.  The  World  and  Journal  have  a  far  different 
plan,  and  "play  up"  stories  that  are  mentioned  briefly,  or 
ignored,  by  some  of  their  contemporaries.  So  the  writer 
on  the  metropolitan  paper  is  trained  to  sift  news,  to  choose 
from  his  wealth  of  material  that  which  the  paper's  tradi- 
tions demand  shall  receive  attention;  and  so  abundant  is 
the  supply  that  he  can  easily  set  a  feast  without  exhausting 
the  market's  offering.  Unconsciously  he  becomes  an  epi- 
cure, and  knows  no  day  will  dawn  without  bringing  him 
his  opportunity. 

What  happens  when  a  city  newspaper  man  goes  to  the 
country?  Though  he  may  have  all  the  graces  of  literary 
skill  and  know  well  the  art  of  featuring  his  material,  he 
comes  to  a  new  journalistic  world.  Thus  did  the  manager 
of  a  flourishing  evening  daily  in  a  city  of  fifty  thousand 
put  it:  "I  went  to  a  leading  metropolitan  daily  to  secure 
a  city  editor,  and  took  a  man  recommended  as  its  most 
capable  reporter,  one  with  years  of  experience  in  the  city 
field.  Brought  to  the  new  atmosphere,  he  was  speedily 
aware  of  the  changed  conditions.  In  the  run  of  the  day's 
news  rarely  was  there  a  murder,  with  horrible  details  as 
sidelights;  no  heiress  eloped  with  a  chauffeur;  no  fire  de- 


270  JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER 

stroyed  tenements  and  lives;  no  family  was  broken  up  by 
scandal.  He  was  at  a  loss  to  find  material  with  which  to 
make  local  pages  attractive.  He  was  compelled  to  give 
attention  to  a  wide  range  of  minor  occurrences,  most  of 
which  he  had  been  taught  to  ignore.  In  the  end  he  re- 
signed. I  found  it  more  satisfactory  to  put  in  his  place  a 
young  man  who  had  worked  on  a  small-town  daily  and 
was  in  sympathy  with  the  things  that  come  close  to  the 
whole  community,  who  realized  that  all  classes  of  readers 
must  be  interested  in  the  paper,  all  kinds  of  happenings 
reported,  and  the  paper  be  made  each  evening  a  picture  of 
the  total  sum  of  the  day's  events,  rather  than  of  a  few 
selected  happenings.  The  news-supply  is  limited,  and  all 
must  be  used  and  arranged  to  interest  readers  —  and  we 
reach  all  classes  of  readers,  not  a  selected  constituency." 

The  small-town  paper  must  do  this,  and  because  its 
writers  are  forced  so  to  look  upon  their  field  they  obtain  a 
broader  comprehension  of  the  community  life  than  do 
those  who  are  restricted  to  special  ideas  and  special  con- 
ceptions of  the  paper's  plans.  The  beginner  who  finds  his 
first  occupation  on  a  country  paper,  by  which  is  meant  a 
paper  in  one  of  the  smaller  cities,  is  likely  to  obtain  a  better 
all-round  knowledge  of  everything  that  must  be  done  in  a 
newspaper  office  than  the  man  who  goes  directly  to  a  posi- 
tion on  a  thoroughly  organized  metropolitan  journal.  He 
does  not  secure,  however,  such  helpful  training  in  style  or 
such  expert  drill  in  newspaper  methods.  He  is  left  to  work 
out  his  own  salvation,  sometimes  becoming  an  adept,  but 
frequently  dragging  along  in  mediocrity.  When  he  goes 
from  the  small  paper  to  the  larger  one,  he  has  a  chance  to 
acquire  efficiency  rapidly.  The  editor  of  one  of  the  coun- 
try's greatest  papers  says  that  he  prefers  to  take  young 
men  of  such  training,  and  finds  that  they  have  a  broader 


JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER  271 

vision  than  when  educated  in  newspaper-making  from  the 
bottom  in  his  own  office. 

It  is  easy  to  say,  as  did  the  merchant  concerning  his  son, 
that  there  are  few  chances  for  financial  success  in  jour- 
nalism. Yet  it  is  probable  that  for  the  man  of  distinction 
in  journalism  the  rewards  are  not  less  than  they  are  in 
other  professions.  The  salaries  on  the  metropolitan  papers 
are  liberal,  and  are  becoming  greater  each  year  as  the  busi- 
ness of  news-purveying  becomes  better  systematized  and 
more  profitable.  The  newspaper  man  earns  vastly  more 
than  the  minister.  The  editor  in  the  city  gets  as  much  out 
of  life  as  do  the  attorneys.  The  country  editor,  with  his 
plant  worth  five  thousand  dollars  or  ten  thousand  dollars, 
frequently  earns  for  his  labors  as  satisfactory  an  income 
as  the  banker;  while  the  number  of  editors  of  country 
weeklies  who  have  a  profit  of  three  thousand  dollars  or 
more  from  their  papers  is  astonishing. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  always  so,  any  more  than  it  is  true 
that  the  lawyer,  preacher,  or  physician  always  possesses  a 
liberal  income.  When  the  city  editor  makes  sport  of  the 
ill-printed  country  paper,  he  forgets  under  what  conditions 
the  country  editor  at  times  works.  A  prosperous  pub- 
lisher with  sympathy  in  his  heart  put  it  this  way :  — 

"The  other  day  we  picked  up  a  dinky  weekly  paper  that 
comes  to  our  desk  every  week.  As  usual  we  found  some- 
thing in  it  that  made  us  somewhat  tired,  and  we  threw  it 
down  in  disgust.  For  some  reason  we  picked  it  up  again 
and  looked  at  it  more  closely.  Our  feelings,  somehow  or 
other,  began  to  change.  We  noted  the  advertisements. 
They  were  few  in  number,  and  we  knew  that  the  wolf  was 
standing  outside  the  door  of  that  little  print-shop  and 
howling.  The  ads  were  poorly  gotten  up,  but  we  knew 
why.  The  poor  fellow  did  n't  have  enough  material  in  his 
shop  to  get  up  a  good  ad.  It  was  poorly  printed  —  almost 


272  JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER 

unreadable  in  spots.  We  knew  again  what  was  the  matter. 
He  needed  new  rollers  and  some  decent  ink,  but  probably 
he  did  n't  have  the  money  to  buy  them.  One  of  the  few 
locals  spoke  about  'the  editor  and  family.'  So  he  had 
other  mouths  to  feed.  He  was  burning  midnight  oil  in 
order  to  save  hiring  a  printer.  He  couldn't  afford  it. 
True,  he  is  n't  getting  out  a  very  good  paper,  but  at  that, 
he  is  giving  a  whole  lot  more  than  he  is  receiving.  It  is 
easy  to  poke  fun  at  the  dinky  papers  when  the  waves  of 
prosperity  are  breaking  in  over  your  own  doorstep.  Likely, 
if  we  were  in  that  fellow's  place  we  could  n't  do  as  well  as 
he  does." 

The  profession  of  the  publicist  naturally  leads  to  poli- 
tics, and  the  editor  is  directly  in  the  path  to  political  pre- 
ferment. The  growth  of  the  primary  system  adds  greatly 
to  the  chance  in  this  direction.  One  of  the  essentials  of 
success  at  a  primary  is  that  the  candidate  have  a  wide 
acquaintance  with  the  public,  that  his  name  shall  have 
been  before  the  voters  sufficiently  often  for  them  to  be- 
come familiar  with  it.  The  editor  who  has  made  his  paper 
known  acquires  this  acquaintance.  He  goes  into  the  cam- 
paign with  a  positive  asset.  One  western  state,  for  in- 
stance, has  newspaper  men  for  one  third  of  its  state  officers 
and  forty  per  cent  of  its  delegation  in  Congress.  This  is 
not  exceptional.  It  is  merely  the  result  of  the  special  con- 
ditions, both  of  fitness  and  prominence,  in  the  editor's 
relation  to  the  public. 

This  very  facility  for  entering  politics  is  perhaps  an 
objection  rather  than  a  benefit.  The  editor  who  is  a  seeker 
after  office  finds  himself  hampered  by  his  ambitions  and 
he  is  robbed  of  much  of  the  independence  that  goes  to 
make  his  columns  of  worth.  The  ideal  position  is  when 
the  editor  owns,  clear  of  debt,  a  profit-making  plant  and 
is  not  a  candidate  for  any  office.  Just  so  far  as  he  departs 


JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER  273 

from  this  condition  does  he  find  himself  restricted  in  the 
free  play  of  his  activities.  If  debt  hovers,  there  is  tempta- 
tion to  seek  business  at  the  expense  of  editorial  utterance; 
if  he  desires  votes,  he  must  temporize  often  in  order  to  win 
friendships  or  to  avoid  enmities.  Freedom  from  entangling 
alliances,  absolutely  an  open  way,  should  be  the  ambition 
of  the  successful  newspaper  worker.  Fortunate  is  the 
subordinate  who  has  an  employer  so  situated,  for  in  such 
an  office  can  be  done  the  best  thinking  and  the  clearest 
writing.  Though  he  may  succeed  in  other  paths,  finan- 
cially, socially,  and  politically,  he  will  lack  in  his  career 
some  of  the  finer  enjoyments  that  can  come  only  with 
unobstructed  vision. 

in 

It  is  not  agreed  that  everyday  newspaper  work  gives 
especial  fitness  for  progress  in  literature.  The  habit  of 
rapid  writing,  of  getting  a  story  to  press  to  catch  the  first 
edition,  has  the  effect  for  many  of  creating  a  style  unfitted 
for  more  serious  effort.  Yet  when  temperament  and  taste 
are  present,  there  is  no  position  in  which  the  aspirant  for 
a  place  in  the  literary  field  has  greater  opportunity.  To 
be  in  touch  with  the  thought  and  the  happenings  of  the 
world  gives  opportunity  for  interpretation  of  life  to  the 
broader  public  of  the  magazine  and  the  published  volume. 
Newspaper  work  does  not  make  writers  of  books,  but  expe- 
rience therein  obtained  does  open  the  way;  and  the  suc- 
cesses, both  in  fiction  and  economics,  that  have  come  in 
the  past  decade  from  the  pens  of  newspaper  workers  is 
ample  evidence  of  the  truth  of  this  statement. 

It  is  one  of  the  criticisms  of  the  press  that  it  corrupts 
beginners  and  not  only  gives  them  a  false  view  of  life,  but 
compels  them  to  do  things  abhorrent  to  those  possessed  of 
the  finer  feelings  of  good  taste  and  courtesy.  The  fact  is 


274  JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER 

that  journalism  is,  to  a  larger  degree  than  almost  all  other 
businesses  or  professions,  individualistic.  It  is  to  each 
worker  what  he  makes  it.  The  minister  has  his  way  well 
defined;  he  must  keep  in  it  or  leave  the  profession.  The 
teacher  is  restrained  within  limits;  the  lawyer  and  physi- 
cian, if  they  would  retain  standing,  must  follow  certain 
codes.  The  newspaper  worker  is  a  free  lance  compared 
with  any  of  these. 

The  instances  in  which  a  reporter  is  asked  to  do  things 
in  opposition  to  the  best  standards  of  ethics  and  courtesy 
are  rare  —  and  becoming  rarer.  The  paper  of  to-day, 
though  a  business  enterprise  as  well  as  a  medium  of  pub- 
licity and  comment,  has  a  higher  ideal  than  that  of  two 
decades  ago.  The  rivalry  is  greater,  the  light  of  competi- 
tion is  stronger,  the  relation  to  the  public  is  closer.  Little 
mystery  surrounds  the  press.  Seldom  does  the  visitor 
stand  open-eyed  in  wonder  before  the  "sanctum."  The 
average  man  and  woman  know  how  "copy"  is  prepared, 
how  type  is  set,  how  the  presses  operate.  The  newspaper 
office  is  an  "open  shop"  compared  with  the  early  printing- 
offices,  of  which  the  readers  of  papers  stood  somewhat  in 
awe.  Because  of  this,  there  is  less  temptation  and  less 
opportunity  for  obscure  methods.  The  profession  offers 
to  the  young  man  and  young  woman  an  opportunity  for 
intelligent  and  untainted  occupation.  Should  there  be  a 
demand  that  seems  unreasonable  or  in  bad  taste,  plenty 
of  places  are  open  on  papers  that  have  a  higher  standard 
of  morals  and  are  conducted  with  a  decent  respect  for  the 
opinions  and  rights  of  the  public. 

Nor  is  it  necessary  that  the  worker  indulge  in  any  pyro- 
technics in  maintaining  his  self-respect.  The  editor  of  one 
of  the  leading  papers  of  western  New  York  quietly  resigned 
his  position  because  he  could  not  with  a  clear  conscience 
support  the  nominee  favored  by  the  owner  of  the  paper. 


JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER  275 

He  did  nothing  more  than  many  men  have  done  in  other 
positions.  His  action  was  not  proof  that  his  employer  was 
dishonest,  but  that  there  were  two  points  of  view  and  he 
could  not  accept  the  one  favored  by  the  publisher.  Such 
a  course  is  always  open,  and  so  wide  is  the  publishing 
world  that  there  is  no  need  for  any  one  to  suffer.  Nor  can 
a  paper  or  an  editor  fence  in  the  earth.  With  enough 
capital  to  buy  a  press  and  paper,  and  to  hire  a  staff,  any 
one  can  have  his  say  —  and  frequently  the  most  unprom- 
ising field  proves  a  bonanza  for  the  man  with  courage  and 
initiative. 

In  a  long  and  varied  experience  as  editor,  I  have  rarely 
found  an  advertiser  who  was  concerned  regarding  the  edi- 
torial policy  of  the  paper.  The  advertiser  wants  publicity; 
he  is  interested  in  circulation  —  when  he  obtains  that,  he 
is  satisfied.  Instances  there  are  where  the  advertiser  has 
a  personal  interest  in  some  local  enterprise  and  naturally 
resents  criticism  of  its  management,  but  such  situations 
can  be  dealt  with  directly  and  without  loss  of  self-respect 
to  the  publisher.  Not  from  the  advertiser  comes  the  most 
interference  with  the  press.  If  there  were  as  little  from 
men  with  political  schemes,  men  with  pet  projects  to  pro- 
mote, men  (and  women)  desiring  to  use  the  newspaper's 
columns  to  boost  themselves  into  higher  positions  or  to 
acquire  some  coveted  honor,  an  independent  and  self- 
respecting  editorial  policy  could  be  maintained  without 
material  hindrance.  With  the  right  sort  of  good  sense  and 
adherence  to  conviction  on  the  part  of  the  publisher  it  can 
be  maintained  under  present  conditions  —  and  the  prob- 
lem becomes  simpler  every  year.  More  papers  that  can- 
not be  cajoled,  bought,  or  bulldozed  are  published  to-day 
than  ever  before  in  the  world's  history.  The  "organ"  is 
becoming  extinct  as  the  promotion  of  newspaper  publicity 


276  JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER 

becomes  more  a  business  and  less  a  means  of  gratifying 
ambition. 

Publishers  have  learned  that  fairness  is  the  best  policy, 
that  it  does  not  pay  to  betray  the  trust  of  the  public,  and 
journalism  becomes  a  more  attractive  profession  exactly 
in  proportion  as  it  offers  a  field  where  self-respect  is  at  a 
premium  and  bosses  are  unconsidered.  The  new  journal- 
ism demands  men  of  high  character  and  good  habits.  The 
old  story  of  the  special  writer  who,  when  asked  what  he 
needed  to  turn  out  a  good  story  for  the  next  day's  paper, 
replied,  "a  desk,  some  paper,  and  a  quart  of  whiskey," 
does  not  apply.  One  of  the  specifications  of  every  request 
for  writers  is  that  the  applicant  shall  not  drink.  Clean- 
liness of  life,  a  well-groomed  appearance,  a  pleasing  per- 
sonality, are  essentials  for  the  journalist  of  to-day.  The 
pace  is  swift,  and  he  must  keep  his  physical  and  mental 
health  in  perfect  condition. 

That  there  is  a  new  journalism,  with  principles  and 
methods  in  harmony  with  new  political  and  social  condi- 
tions and  new  developments  in  news-transmission  and  the 
printing  art,  is  evident.  The  modern  newspaper  is  far 
more  a  business  enterprise  than  was  the  one  of  three 
decades  ago.  To  some  observers  this  means  the  subordi- 
nation of  the  writer  to  the  power  of  the  publisher.  If  this 
be  so  in  some  instances,  the  correction  lies  with  the  public. 
The  abuse  of  control  should  bring  its  own  punishment  in 
loss  of  patronage,  or  of  influence,  or  of  both.  The  news- 
paper, be  it  published  in  a  country  village  or  in  the  largest 
city,  seeks  first  the  confidence  of  its  readers.  Without 
this  it  cannot  secure  either  business  for  its  advertising 
pages  or  influence  for  its  ambitions.  Publicity  alone  may 
once  have  sufficed,  but  rivalry  is  too  keen  to-day.  Com- 
petition brings  a  realizing  sense  of  fairness.  Hence  it  is 
that  there  is  a  demand  for  well-equipped  young  men  and 


JOURNALISM  AS  A  CAREER  277 

clever  young  women  who  can  instill  into  the  pages  of  the 
press  frankness,  virility,  and  a  touch  of  what  newspaper 
men  call  "human  interest." 

The  field  is  broad;  it  has  place  for  writers  of  varied  ac- 
complishments; it  promises  a  profession  filled  with  inter- 
esting experiences  and  close  contact  with  the  world's  pulse. 
It  is  not  for  the  sloth  or  for  the  sloven,  not  for  the  con- 
scienceless or  for  the  unprepared.  Without  real  qualifi- 
cations for  it,  the  ambitious  young  person  would  better 
seek  some  other  life-work. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1.  Books  on  Principles  of  Journalism 

Adams,  Samuel  Hopkins.    The  Clarion.    A  novel.    1914. 

Bleyer,  W.  G.  Newspaper  Writing  and  Editing.  The  Function 
of  the  Newspaper,  pp.  331-389.  1913. 

Hapgood,  Norman.  Everyday  Ethics.  Ethics  of  Journalism, 
pp.  1-15.  1910. 

Holt,  Hamilton.    Commercialism  and  Journalism.    1909. 

Proceedings  of  the  First  National  Newspaper  Conference.  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin.  1913. 

Reid,  Whitelaw.  American  and  English  Studies.  Journalistic 
Duties  and  Opportunities,  v.  2,  pp.  313-344.  1913. 

Rogers,  Jason.     Newspaper  Building.     1918. 

Rogers,  J.  E.    The  American  Newspaper.    1909. 

Scott-James,  R.  A.    The  Influence  of  the  Press.    1913. 

Thorpe,  Merle,  editor.    The  Coming  Newspaper.    1915. 

2.  What  Typical  Newspapers  Contain 

Wilcox,  Delos  F.    The  American  Newspaper:  A  Study  in  Social 

Psychology.    Annals  of  the  American  Academy,  v.  16,  p.  56. 

(July,  1900.) 
Garth,  T.  R.    Statistical  Study  of  the  Contents  of  Newspapers. 

School  and  Society,  v.  3,  p.  140.    (Jan.  22,  1916.) 
Tenney,  A.  A.    Scientific  Analysis  of  the  Press.    Independent, 

v.  73,  p.  895.    (Oct.  17,  1912.) 
Mathews,  B.  C.    Study  of  a  New  York  Daily.    Independent, 

v.  68,  p.  82.    (Jan.  13,  1910.) 

3.  What  the  Public  Wants 

Thorpe,  Merle,  editor.    The  Coming  Newspaper,  pp.  223-247; 

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7.  Yellow  and  Sensational  Journalism 

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20 


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10.  Coloring  the  News 

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The  Coming  Newspaper,  pp.  148-161.  1915. 

Lawrence,  David.  International  Freedom  of  the  Press  Essen- 
tial to  a  Durable  Peace.  Annals  of  the  American  Academy, 
v.  72,  p.  139.  (July  1917.) 

19.  The  Country  Newspaper 

White,   William  Allen.     The  Country  Newspaper.     Harper's 

Magazine,  v.  132,  p.  887.    (May  1916.) 
Tennal,  Ralph.     A  Modern  Type  of  Country  Journalism,  in 

Thorpe's  The  Coming  Newspaper,  pp.  112-147.    1915. 
Bing,  P.  C.    The  Country  Weekly.    1917. 

20.  Newspapers  of  the  Future 

Irwin,  Will.    The  Voice  of  a  Generation.    Collier's  Weekly, 

v.  47,  p.  15.    (July  29,  1911.) 
Low,  A.  Maurice.     The  Modern  Newspaper  as  It  Might  Be. 

Yale  Review,  v.  2,  p.  282.    (Jan.  1913.) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  289 

Thorpe,  Merle,  editor.    The  Coming  Newspaper,  pp.  1-26.    1915. 
Munsey,  Frank  A.    Journalism  of  the  Future.    Munsey  Maga- 
zine, v.  28,  p.  662.    (Feb.  1903.) 
Ideal  Newspaper.     Current  Literature,  v.  48,  p.  335.     (March 

1910.) 
Murray,  W.  H.    An  Endowed  Press.    Arena,  v.  2,  p.  553.    (Oct. 

1890.) 
Payne,  W.  M.     An  Endowed  •  Newspaper,  in  Little  Leaders, 

p.  178-185.    1902. 
Endowed  Journalism.    Literary  Digest,  v.  45,  p.  303.    (Aug.  24, 

1912.) 
Holt,  Hamilton.    Plan  for  an  Endowed  Journal.    Independent, 

v.  73,  p.  299.     (Aug.  12,  1912.) 
Taking  the  Endowed  Newspaper  Seriously.    Current  Literature, 

v.  53,  p.  311.    (Sept.  1912.) 
Municipal  Newspaper,  The.    Independent,  v.  71,  p.  1342.    (Dec. 

14,  1911.) 

Municipal  Newspapers.    Survey,  v.  26,  p.  720.    (Aug.  19,  1911.) 
Slosson,  E.  E.     The  Possibility  of  a  University  Newspaper. 

Independent,  v.  72,  p.  351.    (Feb.  15,  1912.) 


NOTES  ON  THE  WRITERS 

ROLLO  OGDEN  became  a  member  of  the  editorial  staff  of  the 
New  York  Evening  Post  in  1891,  and  has  been  editor  of  that 
paper  since  1903.  He  edited  the  Life  and  Letters  of  Edwin 
Lawrence  Godkin,  published  in  1907.  His  article  on  "Some 
Aspects  of  Journalism"  was  published  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
for  July,  1906. 

OSWALD  GARRISON  VILLARD,  whose  article,  entitled  "Press 
Tendencies  and  Dangers,"  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  for  January, 
1918,  is  a  son  of  the  late  Henry  Villard,  who  owned  the  New  York 
Evening  Post  and  the  Nation,  and  a  grandson  of  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  the  great  emancipator  and  editor  of  the  Liberator.  He 
succeeded  his  father  as  president  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post 
and  of  the  Nation,  to  both  of  which  he  frequently  contributes 
editorials  and  special  articles. 

FRANCIS  E.  LEUPP  was  actively  engaged  in  newspaper  work 
for  thirty  years,  from  the  time  that  he  joined  the  staff  of  the 
New  York  Evening  Post  in  1874  until  1904.  During  half  of  that 
time,  from  1889  to  1904,  he  was  in  charge  of  the  Washington 
bureau  of  the  Post.  Since  retiring  from  that  position,  he  has 
been  doing  literary  work.  His  article  on  "The  Waning  Power 
of  the  Press"  was  published  in  the  Atlantic  for  February,  1910. 

H.  L.  MENCKEN  was  connected  with  Baltimore  newspapers  for 
nearly  twenty  years,  part  of  the  time  as  city  editor  and  later  as 
editor  of  the  Baltimore  Herald,  and  for  the  last  twelve  years  as  a 
member  of  the  staff  of  the  Baltimore  Sun,  from  which  he  has 
recently  severed  his  connection.  He  is  now  one  of  the  editors  of 
Smart  Set.  "Newspaper  Morals"  was  printed  in  the  Atlantic 
for  March,  1914. 

RALPH  PULITZER,  who  wrote  his  reply  to  Mr.  Mencken's 
article  for  the  Atlantic  for  June,  1914,  is  a  son  of  the  late  Joseph 
Pulitzer  of  the  New  York  World  and  the  St.  Louis  Post-Dispatch. 
He  began  newspaper  work  in  1900,  and  since  1911  has  been  presi- 
dent of  the  company  that  publishes  the  World.  He  takes  an 


NOTES  ON  THE  WRITERS  291 

active  part  in  the  direction  of  the  editorial  and  news  policies  of 
that  paper. 

PROFESSOR  EDWARD  A.  Ross  has  been  an  aggressive  pioneer 
in  the  field  of  sociology  in  this  country  and  has  written  many 
books  on  social  problems.  His  study  of  the  suppression  of  news, 
the  results  of  which  were  published  in  the  Atlantic  for  March, 
1910,  grew  out  of  his  interest  hi  the  newspaper  as  a  social  force. 

HENRY  WATTERSON,  who  takes  issue  with  Professor  Ross  in 
his  article  on  "The  Personal  Equation  in  Journalism,"  in  the 
Atlantic  for  July,  1910,  is  the  last  of  the  great  editorial  leaders  of 
Civil  War  days.  For  half  a  century  his  trenchant  editorial  com- 
ments in  the  Louisville  Courier-Journal,  of  which  he  has  been  the 
editor  since  1868,  have  been  reprinted  in  newspapers  all  over  the 
country. 

AN  OBSERVER  has  seen  much  service  as  the  Washington  corres- 
pondent of  an  important  newspaper.  "The  Problem  of  the 
Associated  Press"  was  printed  in  the  Atlantic  for  July,  1914. 

MELVILLE  E.  STONE,  who  defends  the  Associated  Press,  has 
been  its  general  manager  for  twenty-five  years.  Previous  to  his 
connection  with  that  organization  he  was  associated  with  Victor 
F.  Lawson  in  the  establishment  and  development  of  the  Chicago 
Daily  News.  He  has  written  a  number  of  articles  on  the  work  of 
the  Associated  Press. 

"PARACELSUS"  sketches  briefly  his  own  career  in  journalism 
in  his  "Confessions  of  a  Provincial  Editor,"  published  in  the 
Atlantic  for  March,  1902. 

CHARLES  MOREAU  HARGER,  as  head  of  the  department  of 
journalism  at  the  University  of  Kansas  from  1905  to  1907,  was 
one  of  the  first  college  instructors  of  journalism  in  this  country. 
At  the  same  time  he  was  editor  of  the  Abilene  (Kan.)  Daily 
Reflector,  which  he  has  published  for  thirty  years.  "The  Country 
Editor  of  To-day"  is  taken  from  the  Atlantic  for  January,  1907, 
and  "Journalism  as  a  Career,"  from  that  for  February,  1911. 

GEORGE  W.  ALGER,  author  of  the  article  on  "Sensational 
Journalism  and  the  Law,"  in  the  Atlantic  for  February,  1903,  has 
been  engaged  in  the  practice  of  law  in  New  York  City  for  many 


292  NOTES  ON  THE  WRITERS 

years.  He  has  taken  an  active  part  in  the  framing  of  New  York 
state  laws  protecting  workers.  Two  books  of  his,  Moral  Over- 
strain, 1906,  and  The  Old  Law  and  the  New  Order,  1913,  deal 
with  the  relation  of  the  law  to  social,  commercial,  and  indus- 
trial problems. 

RICHARD  WASHBURN  CHILD,  although  a  lawyer,  is  best  known 
to  the  reading  public  as  the  author  of  novels  and  short  stories, 
many  of  which  have  been  published  in  magazines.  His  article 
on  "The  Critic  and  the  Law"  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  for  May, 
1906. 

CHARLES  MINER  THOMPSON,  editor-in-chief  of  Youth's  Com- 
panion, has  been  a  member  of  the  staff  of  that  periodical  since 
1890.  Previous  to  that  time  he  was  literary  editor  of  the  Boston 
Advertiser.  "Honest  Literary  Criticism"  was  published  in  the 
Atlantic  for  August,  1908. 

JAMES  S.  METCALFE  has  been  dramatic  editor  of  Life  for 
nearly  thirty  years.  In  1915  he  established  the  Metcalfe  dra- 
matic prize  at  Yale  University,  his  alma  mater.  His  article  on 
"Dramatic  Criticism  in  the  American  Press"  appeared  in  the 
Atlantic  for  April,  1918. 

RALPH  BERGENGREN  has  been  cartoonist,  art  critic,  dramatic 
critic,  and  editorial  writer  on  various  Boston  newspapers,  and  is 
a  frequent  contributor  to  magazines.  "The  Humor  of  the  Col- 
ored Supplement"  is  taken  from  \heAtlantic  for  August,  1906. 

JAMES  H.  COLLINS,  whose  article  on  "The  American  Grub 
Street"  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  for  November,  1906,  is  a  New 
York  publisher,  best  known  as  the  writer  of  articles  on  business 
methods  published  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post. 


OTHER  ATLANTIC  TEXTS 
FOR  THE  PROGRESSIVE  TEACHER 


ESSAYS  AND  ESSAY  WRITING 

Edited,  with  Notes  and   Introduction,  by  WILLIAM   M.  TANNER 
University  of  Texas. 


This  book  is  a  collection  of  about  seventy-five  short  familiar  es- 
says selected  from  the  Contributors'  Club  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly 
and  specially  edited  for  use  in  advanced  high  school  work,  as  well  as 
in  college  English.  The  selections,  of  about  one  thousand  words 
each,  are  classified  under  five  types  of  the  familiar  essay,  each  type- 
group  preceded  by  a  concise  statement  of  its  distinguishing  character- 
istics. An  introduction,  with  suggestions  for  study,  specific  questions, 
and  a  list  of  250  suggestive  titles  for  original  essays,  renders  the  volume 
unusually  valuable  as  a  textbook  for  classes  in  composition. 

It  is  the  aim  of  Essays  and  Essay  Writing  to  encourage  the  student 
in  discovering  his  own  ideas  and  in  expressing  his  thought  in  as  clear, 
personal,  fresh,  vigorous,  and  correct  style  as  he  can  develop.  An 
attempt  is  made  to  assist  both  student  and  teacher  to  get  away  from 
the  rather  trite,  impersonal  composition,  or  'weekly  theme'.  Original- 
ity, clearness,  simplicity,  ease,  and  naturalness  of  expression  are 
qualities  emphasized  throughout  the  book. 

Among  the  titles  included  in  the  Table  of  Contents  are  essays 
on  such  everyday  subjects  as  'The  Saturday  Night  Bath',  'Furnace 
and  I',  'The  Daily  Theme  Eye',  'On  Noses',  and  others,  which  readers 
of  The  Atlantic  Monthly  have  particularly  appreciated,  and  which 
both  students  and  teachers  have  welcomed  with  new  interest. 

For  advanced  High  School  and  College  Classes. 

Examination  copies  sent  to  teachers  on  request. 
$1.00,  postpaid;  school  rate,  80  cents,  carriage  additional. 


THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS,  INC. 

41    MOUNT   VERNON   STREET,    BOSTON 


ATLANTIC  NARRATIVES,  First  Series 

Selected  and  Edited  by  CHARLES  SWAIN  THOMAS,  A.M. 

Head  of  the  English  Department,  Newton  (Mass.)  High  School,  and 
Lecturer  in  the  Harvard  Summer  School 


This  book  contains  twenty-three  short  stories  of  unusual  merit 
which  have  appeared  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly.  Chosen  for  their 
high  literary  value  and  for  their  freshness,  modernity,  and  human 
interest,  these  stories  are  typical  of  the  best  work  of  John  Galsworthy, 
Dallas  Lore  Sharp,  Henry  Seidel  Canby,  Katharine  Fullerton  Ger- 
ould,  E.  Nesbit,  Margaret  Prescott  Montague,  and  other  leading 
writers  of  England  and  America. 

Although  a  delightful  book  for  the  general  reader,  Atlantic  Nar- 
ratives is  published  especially  for  use  in  college  classes  in  English. 
In  addition  to  acquainting  students  with  the  best  in  contemporary 
short  stories,  it  will  help  them  to  compare  and  discuss  intelligently 
the  most  eminent  story-tellers,  not  of  yesterday,  but  of  to-day — the 
men  and  women  who  are  now  writing  for  our  better  publications,  and 
whose  works  must  be  included  in  any  scheme  of  education  in  English 
which  is  not  one-sided. 

The  volume  contains  a  general  introduction,  including  a  suggestive 
discussion  of  the  modern  short  story,  critical  comments  upon  each 
story,  and  brief  biographical  notes.  The  editor  has  aimed  to  make, 
not  a  'textbook'  containing  short  stories,  but  a  book  of  short  stories 
so  good  that  it  will  be  used  as  a  text. 

Examination  copies  sent  to  teachers  on  request. 
$1.00,  postpaid;  school  rate,  80  cents,  carriage  additional. 


ATLANTIC  NARRATIVES,  Second  Series 
in  preparation 

Similar  to  Atlantic  Narratives  First  Series,  but  intended  for  the 
use  of  younger  students,  this  collection  of  Atlantic  short  stories 
is  selected  and  edited  for  secondary  schools. 


THE  ATLANTIC   MONTHLY  PRESS,   INC. 

41    MOUNT   VERNON   STREET,   BOSTON 


THE  ATLANTIC  CLASSICS  SERIES 


Although  both  series  of  ATLANTIC  CLASSICS  are  intended 
primarily  for  the  general  reader,  both  are  being  used  with  success 
in  classes  in  American  literature.  These  collections  of  Atlantic 
Monthly  essays  present  the  work  of  some  of  our  best  contemporary 
authors.  The  fact  that  these  distinguished  men  and  women  are  still 
writing,  cannot  fail  to  quicken  the  student's  interest  both  in  them 
and  in  the  essays  as  subjects  of  study.  \\'. 


ATLANTIC  CLASSICS,  First  Series 

The  sixteen  essays  in  this  volume  include  among  others:  'Turtle 
Eggs  for  Agassiz'  by  Dallas  Lore  Sharp;  'A  Father  to  his  Freshman 
Son'  by  Edward  Sanford  Martin,  'Reminiscence  with  Postscript'  by 
Owen  Wister,  'The  Provincial  American'  by  Meredith  Nicholson, 
'The  Street'  by  Simson  Strunsky,  'A  Confession  in  Prose'  by  Walter 
Prichard  Eaton,  and  'Our  Lady  Poverty'  by  Agnes  Repplier. 


ATLANTIC  CLASSICS,  Second  Series 

Among  the  essays  contained  in  this  collection  are  'Every  Man's 
Natural  Desire  to  be  Somebody  Else'  by  Samuel  McChord  Crothers, 
'The  Devil  Baby  at  Hull  House'  by  Jane  Addams,  'The  Greek 
Genius'  by  John  Jay  Chapman,  'Haunted  Lives'  by  Laura  Spencer 
Portor,  'Jungle  Night'  by  William  Beebe,  and  others  of  equal  interest 
to  the  general  reader  and  to  the  young  student. 

Suitable  for  College  and  advanced  High  School  classes. 

Examination  copies  of  either  book  sent  to  teachers  on  request. 

Each  $1.25,  postpaid;  school  rate,  83  cents,  carriage  additional. 


THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS,  INC. 

41    MOUNT   VERNON   STREET,    BOSTON 


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